


The Long Trick

by kristophine



Category: Sports Night
Genre: Bisexuality, M/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-09 11:09:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 35,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13480236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kristophine/pseuds/kristophine
Summary: Danny and Casey (and Dana and Lisa) from 1973 to 2015 (but mostly 1987 to 2001): how you learn things, forget things, avoid things, and eventually, if you're lucky, grow a little.





	The Long Trick

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to saathi1013 for beta on this, and convincing me to remove many, many commas. I have an extensive spreadsheet of when canonical events had to have happened, if you're wanting to write Sports Night and struggling with timelines; feel free to ask for it. Or ignore them completely, like Sorks obviously did.
> 
> Playlist here: [boys at the anchor desk anchoring us](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxCw4G6U6784u-lE6Bq5ccwiW-yVDu-vA)

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;

And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,

And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

 

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

 

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,

To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

 

\--John Masefield, “Sea Fever”

_[May 28 th, 2000: Anthony’s]_

“The money thing—”

Dan watched Natalie and Dana heading off to the ladies’ room. Jeremy was up at the bar arguing about something with Will, which he apparently needed a full fleet of paper napkins and a leaky ballpoint pen to adequately illustrate. For the moment, they had a modicum of peace, which Casey was intent on ruining.

“Casey, I’m going to need you to stop talking immediately. Nothing good has ever come of starting a conversation with ‘the money thing.’”

“I just wanted to say I’m _sorry,_ okay? I’m sorry I brought that up.”

“You better be.” Dan’s head lolled back against the booth. “It was a real dick thing to do. Spectacular assholery. Spect- _ass_ -ular.”

“I’m going to have to object to that on principle. That is a truly terrible portmanteau.”

“Truly terrible? God, your alliteration sucks.”

“ _I_ suck.”

“I know.”

“It’s—it’s only because I have a couple of years on you.”

“I know that.”

“I have more seniority, but I don’t think I’m better at this than you are.”

“Feel free to shut up before you say something shitty and ruin this apology.”

“Is it working, though?” Casey was slumped against his side, radiating neediness in that special way he did when he knew he had done wrong, and was also drunk.

“Is what working?”

“The apology.”

Dan sighed, a huge gust of breath, and watched it stir a lock of Casey’s hair. “I suppose.”

“Because I really—I need you. I told you to go without me because I wanted to prove that I respect you, and I do, you could do this without me. But I don’t want to do this without you.”

“I don’t want to do this without you, either.” Danny coughed. “I think you should know that. I told J.J. that.”

“That’s good. Wait. J.J.?”

“Yeah.”

“When did—did he _ask?_ ”

“Yeah. When you were—right after the divorce, you know, you kind of lost your shit for a while there. They made some noises.”

“They were going to fire me?” Casey said, in incredulous dismay.

“Nah.” Dan waved a vague hand. “You know how they are. Just macho chest-beating. They didn’t have names or anything.”

“You never told me.”

“I didn’t think you needed to hear that kind of shit when you were already hurting.”

“You didn’t—even when I threw all that shit in your face.” Casey was obviously torn between anger at having been kept in the dark and grudging admiration that Dan had managed to actually keep a secret. “Why are you telling me now?”

“Abby thinks I should, uh. Be honest with the people in my life about what they mean to me. And she said, and I quote, ‘Dan, that does _not_ mean telling them just the good things so they like you.’”

“But that… was that a good thing? I can’t even tell.”

“I’m not sure either, to be perfectly honest, but I just had a feeling Abby would say I should tell you, so.”

“You had a feeling?”

“I had a feeling.”

“Planning on having more of those? It could get inconvenient.”

Dan surprised himself with sudden, braying laughter that was so hard flecks of spittle went flying.

“You’re telling _me?_ ” Dan hooted with laughter again. “Feelings! Inconvenient! _Who knew!_ Profound emotional insights, courtesy of Casey McCall at eleven.”

“Okay, first off, it’s not even eleven. It’s one-thirty.”

“It’s a tagline, I’m not actually saying what we’re—you know you’re even worse when you’re drinking?”

“Worse than what? Are you mad at me? And if so, is it still or again?”

“Worse about being a huge pedantic butthead. And no. I’m not mad at you. Probably.”

 _“Probably_ not mad? That’s not all that comforting.”

“It has been brought to my attention that I am not necessarily all that good at being in touch with my feelings. Therefore, while I am not conscious of any burning anger toward you right now, this very moment, there is still the possibility that I’m repressing anger. Or something.”

“Well.” Casey fiddled with his coaster, creasing the thick paper over and over. “If you realize, now or at any point in the future, that you’re mad at me, do me a favor and tell me. Or don’t. Actually, maybe don’t.”

“Abby says it’s unhealthy to—shit, she had a word for it. Internalize. She says it’s not healthy to internalize conflict and that I should work harder on standing up for myself without trying to—to stomp other people down.”

“Huh,” said Casey.

“She says I learned this whole overreacting thing from my dad. Blowing up. She says it’s to cover fear.”

“Abby says a lot of things.”

Natalie and Dana were returning, heads together, giggling. They sat down, or more accurately collapsed into their chairs.

Dan said quietly, “Yeah, it’s only an hour, you wouldn’t think she’d get so much into it. She packs a lot of content into those little sessions.”

“Much like we do.”

“Much like we do, yes.”

“They replaced the sinks,” said Dana intently to Casey, as if this were of vital importance.

“Really.”

“Really! They’re concrete now.”

“Huh.” Casey frowned in thought. “Concrete sinks?”

“It’s very hip,” supplied Natalie. “I’ve seen it at some of the new clubs.”

“Does it work, though?”

“What do you mean, does it work?” Natalie rolled her eyes. “Of course it _works,_ Casey, they’re not going to pay money to install new sinks that don’t _work_.”

“Well, you never know!”

Across the table, Dana yawned deeply and rested her head on Natalie’s shoulder, mirroring Casey and Dan.

From the bar, Jeremy looked over at Natalie, and at Dana’s slow droop. He straightened up, nodding at Will, and called to them, “I think it’s getting to be time to call it a night.”

“More like a morning,” Casey said into a yawn of his own. Dan laughed.

“Come on. Let’s get you into a cab.”

 

On the sidewalk, watching Casey’s cab leave, Jeremy said, “Do you think Abby could… recommend somebody?”

“You want to get on board the train?”

“The train?”

“Yeah, the therapy train. It takes you all kinds of exciting and terrible places you never wanted to go.”

“Well, when you put it like that…”

“I think she could, yeah. Want me to get some names?”

“I’d appreciate it if you could.”

“Realizing you were an asshole there?”

“It has been brought to my attention.”

“Repeatedly, often by Natalie.”

“This isn’t about her, though. I mean, not entirely. I just… I know I’ve been hard to be around since my parents’ divorce.”

“Buddy, trust me.” Dan thumped Jeremy on the shoulder as another cab pulled up in front of them. “I know all _about_ being hard to be around.”

Jeremy waved as Dan scrambled into the cab. He gave his address to the driver and leaned back against the seat, watching the sparkling streets around Rockefeller glide away.

 

_[June 28 th, 1988: Office]_

_“Hi, I’m—I think this is where I’m supposed to sit?”_

_Casey McCall looked up from his desk and pinned Dan with a penetrating stare; Dan could feel the sweat starting on his forehead, the uncomfortable shortness of breath. “You’re the new intern?”_

_“Yeah, this is my first summer internship.”_

_“Great. I have a pile of tapes that the last kid put back into boxes apparently at random. I need you to figure out which one is which. And label them, for Christ’s sake.” Casey groaned in exhaustion, grinding his fist into his left eye. “Television’s in the corner. Don’t make any noise.”_

_“Sure thing.” Dan looked for a roll of masking tape and a marker, which ended up meaning a quick jaunt to the receptionist at the front desk, who gave him a benevolent smile and yielded up some actual nice labels. He hustled back to the office and hefted the box of VHS tapes over to the TV on its black metal cart. He dragged up a folding chair, hit the mute button, and started putting tapes in, popping them out again and labeling them as fast as he could recognize the games._

_He wasn’t really paying attention to time—it was almost exhilarating to be quizzing himself on recognizing the players before he got any real solid clues to each game—but at some point he moved a little while labeling a tape, realized he had a massive crick in his neck, and tried to roll it out._

_Which was how he turned his head and saw Casey staring at him blankly._

_“I’m, uh,” Dan said, gesturing with the marker, “getting close to done?”_

_“That was a_ lot _of tapes.”_

_“Yeah?” Dan said, turning it into a question without meaning to. Was he in trouble already, somehow?_

_“How are you going that fast?”_

_“Oh. Well, I’ve been working on memorizing players, and the coaches don’t change as much, so—”_

_“How are you labeling the tapes?”_

_“Teams and dates.”_

_“You’re including dates?”_

_“Yes? It’s there in the corner of the screen.”_

_Casey nodded at him slowly. “That’s perfect.” And then there it was: the real Casey McCall smile, about a million watts, aimed directly at him._

_Dan smiled back, heart racing. He had to turn back to the box, dig for another tape, keep going until he could breathe again._

 

_[June 20th, 2000: Office]_

“Danny.”

“What?”

Danny didn’t look up from his keyboard, so Casey wadded up a sticky note and threw it at his head. It hit perfectly—nailed him right between the eyes—and Dan clapped a hand to his forehead, squinting up at Casey, glaring.

“I said, _what?_ I did _not_ say ‘Hey, Casey, I’m not paying attention,’ or whatever else you might have suspected you heard that led you to juvenile throwing of objects.”

“It wasn’t objects, plural, it was a sticky note, singular.”

Danny picked it up, frowning at the neon paper. “Fine. So _what?_ ”

“I’m thinking about something.”

“You’re going to strain something, doing that. Think from the knees.”

“Hardy har. You’re a very funny man, Danny.”                                            

“I know.” Dan spread his hands grandly. “It’s what I do.”

“But I’m thinking.”

“We’ve established that.” Danny got up and wandered over to the window, peering out at the sunny day beyond. The sky on the way in had been a vivid, electric blue; everything felt tense and expectant, like they were on the verge of a heat wave.

“Here’s the thing.”

Danny groaned, wordlessly and expressively, and threw himself back full-length on the couch, which required dramatically dangling his feet off the end. It wasn’t a long couch.

“Hear me out!”

“If this is going to be about Dana again—”

“I’m just saying—”

“And I’m just telling _you_ that I don’t give a _damn_ if Sam Donovan is back—”

“Neither do I! That’s the point!”

“If you don’t care, you are doing an amazing job of faking it.”

“He’s only back for a couple of months.”

“I am aware of this, and yet I’m still being subjected to a description of it.”

“Dana seems to have grown fond of him.”

“I would agree. Many of us, in fact, despite his crusty exterior, have discovered the fragrant bread of friendship within.”

“The fragrant—” Casey made a face at Danny, who breezily waved away his concerns.

“I have a wide and varied vocabulary, Casey, I like to exercise it from time to time.”

“That’s not exercise, that’s like limping around on crutches.”

“You realize I’m successfully keeping you from telling me about your Dana issues.”

“That’s the point, anyway. There are no issues. She’s free to date whoever she wants to date. Our dance is over. Our two-step of, of…”

“Intraoffice romance and unparalleled insanity,” offered Dan helpfully.

“Unsatisfactory dating.”

“Mutual delusions.”

“Is over. It’s done.”

Dan closed his eyes, draping his arm over his face to hide in the crook of it. “I don’t caaaare,” he sang out, only slightly muffled.

“Why don’t you believe me? You don’t honestly think I’m still in love with Dana.”

“No. I don’t.”

“Well, then,” said Casey, at a loss.

“I think _you_ think you’re still in love with Dana, and what’s worse, you’re suffering under the misapprehension that the rest of us care.”

“You should care! It would be a big deal. If she and I got together. Or, for that matter, if she started seeing anyone from work.”

“You’re not going to get together. That ship sailed, or perhaps the better metaphor is that crazy train went off the rails.” Dan mimed a train going off the edge of a cliff and made the crash-and-burn noise.

“Hey! What are you, Natalie, now?”

“Natalie has more emotional intelligence in her little finger than you have ever, at any point in your life or cumulatively, possessed. The fact that she uses this to gather information and flesh out dossiers on us is terrifying, but ultimately she tries to work it for our own good. You could learn something from her.”

“Damn it, Danny.”

Danny held up a finger to shush Casey. “Dana’s going to date Sam Donovan. The two of them have this very specific brand of crazy that fits together remarkably well. He’s full of grudging vague pronouncements like a cut-rate fortune cookie factory and she’s been going through some kind of pre-mid-life crisis where his illusion of certainty appeals to her.”

“I think she likes Calvin Trager, too.”

“I agree, _but_ I don’t think Calvin Trager is going to sleep with somebody in his own organization. He doesn’t like chaos.”

Casey stared off into the distance. “Thank God she didn’t marry Gordon.”

Danny made a vague noise of horror. “I hadn’t thought about him in a really long time and I liked it better that way.”

“He was such an asshole.”

“Yeah.” Danny gave it a beat while he stared up at the ceiling before adding, “To be fair, so are you. So am I, actually.”

“Wait, what?”

“We’re assholes.”

“What’s brought on this revelation?”

“I was talking to Abby last week.”

“Ah, yes. Abby of the many thoughts.”

Danny sighed, taking his arm off his face. “You say that like it’s a terrible thing to see a shrink. You think it’s so bad?”

The way he was asking, it didn’t sound like a trap—not quite—but it also didn’t really sound like a question. The air conditioning clunked on and started blowing cool air.

Casey scrounged around for an answer before settling on the highly unsatisfactory truth. “It seemed like you got… worse.”

“After I started seeing Abby.”

“Yeah.”

“I did.”

Casey spread out his hands. “Well, then.”

“That’s normal, though.”

“That doesn’t sound like an advertisement for therapy.”

“It gets worse before it gets better.”

“Does it, or does it just get worse?”

Danny blinked slowly at the ceiling. “I think it does get better,” he said contemplatively. “I mean, don’t you think I’m doing better?”

Loaded question. Tricky question. But… “Yeah, I guess.” Draft Day had been something of a nadir for Danny, and he’d been mounting a slow comeback ever since. Casey hadn’t thought to rank it against his pre-Abby state, but comparing them side by side, it seemed like maybe he was starting to eke out a narrow lead over his former self. Danny had a history of pretty fucking low lows.

“I think so, too.”

“Still not sure how this connects to us being assholes.”

“Casey.” Danny levered himself up on his elbows, knees still dangling incongruously over the arm of the couch. “How do you feel about women?”

“Obviously I like women just fine. I work with women. I work with many women, all day long. Is this coming from Rebecca? Is Ms. Wharton Graduate making you do remedial reading?”

Danny actually laughed—not an on-air kind of theatrical laugh, either, but short. Genuine. He dropped back onto the cushions. “No, but if she asked me to, I would. This isn’t—I was talking to Abby about how things were going with Rebecca, you know, and she started asking me about the stuff I was doing when Rebecca and I got together.”

“The stalking.”

“Yeah. It was—that was super fucked, right? I asked her out like twenty times. I chased her down at _work,_ Casey. What if she hadn’t really wanted to go out with me? What if there wasn’t a spark there?”

“There was a spark.”

“Obviously there was a spark, but what if I’d just deluded myself into thinking there was a spark, the way you and Dana delude yourselves and each other?”

“Hey!”

“I would have been— _hounding_ this woman, God only knows if she’s had _real_ stalkers before. I could have been ruining her life.”

“She could have…” Casey trailed off.

“What, called Security? Made a big deal about it to management? You think that would have gone well for her?”

Casey didn’t have a good reply to that.

Danny nodded, staring straight up. “Exactly. Abby was talking about boundaries. She says if I don’t learn what acceptable boundaries are for other people, how am I supposed to know where to set my own boundaries? So I’m supposed to work on establishing and respecting boundaries.”

“Stop saying _boundaries,_ God. I still don’t see how you stalking Rebecca makes me an asshole.”

“It doesn’t, but seriously, think really hard about how you are with women. Especially at work.”

“I flirt. I’m flirtatious.”

“That is a damn lie and you know it.”

“Okay, fine, maybe I’m not _great_ at flirting.”

“If what you’re doing counts as flirting, the dictionary needs a rewrite.” Danny did finger-guns vaguely at the ceiling. “And as you pointed out, we work with a lot of women. So we can both work on that. You can help me with the boundaries, and I can help you be more _actually_ flirtatious and less of a dick.”

Casey sat in silence with that, huffily banging out nonsense on his keyboard.

“You got the numbers on the Yankees?” Casey said after a few minutes. Danny took it as the peace offering it was.

 

_[July 4 th, 1988: Bob’s house]_

_After two hot dogs with everything, Casey was feeling more than a little pleased with himself, leaning back against the deck railing. The sky was turning a rich, dark teal, glassy and calm in the evening’s heat. Bob’s wife had put together a nice meal for everyone. It felt like half the station was there, swarming their home. Dana was talking with Lisa inside; he could see them through the sliding glass doors, both a little drunk, clutching their glasses of wine, laughing helplessly and sagging against each other._

_“Hey!”_

_Casey knew even before he looked who it was. That bright, clear voice had become familiar over the week they’d worked together so far._

_“Hi, Danny.” He smiled at the kid. All awkward, goofy angles, but you could tell he was growing into his frame. It was so funny; at Danny's age Casey had already had his sights set on marrying Lisa. It had taken him years to coax her into it._

_“Enjoying the evening?” Danny waved his can—Casey was prepared to pretend it wasn’t beer before realizing that it was, in fact, Pepsi—around at the rolling lawn, the grill finally shut down at the other end of the deck._

_“You know, I think I am.”_

_“Think they’re going to start the fireworks soon?”_

_“Yeah, it’s getting dark.”_

_As if Danny had summoned them, there was a low rumbling and then a boom. Showers of light started to flare here and there in the sky._

_Danny laughed next to him. “Can’t keep people from enjoying a good Fourth of July, am I right?”_

_“Hell, you can’t even keep me from enjoying a bad one.” Casey toasted the fireworks with his beer._

_“Dana was telling me you’re getting married soon.”_

_“Yeah.” There was, as there had always been, a twist in his chest at the thought—a twinge of blended panic and excitement. “Lisa and I are getting married this September.”_

_“That’s amazing! Congratulations, man!”_

_Maybe it was the beer, painting everything with a warm haze, or the celebratory nature of the occasion. Casey found himself pulling Danny in for a hug, their chests pressed together. Danny was too skinny, should eat more, but his body felt blazing hot in the cooling twilight._

_The hug was long. Casey was full of something effervescent and elated, close to bubbling over. He was working in sports broadcasting, finally the man_ with _the interns instead of_ being _the intern, he was getting married, starting a family._

_This was how happiness started. Real happiness._

_Dan was still smiling when he pulled away. “So, are you going to stay in the area?”_

_“I don’t know. Probably at least for a while, you know, get through the wedding and get started on the whole marriage thing. And build up more experience before I try to get into a bigger market. I want to be on camera, and Bill says that could be as soon as next year.”_

_“Well, that all makes sense. Good luck with getting on camera. I hear practice makes perfect.”_

_“You heard right.”_

_“Good thing I’m learning from the best.” Danny gave that line with such deadpan saccharine delivery that Casey whipped his head around to glare at him. Danny couldn’t sustain it, bursting into peals of laughter._

_Casey found himself laughing, too._

 

_[July 13 th, 2000: Set]_

Rebecca was leaning over the desk, smiling at Danny. It wasn’t that Casey found this irritating. Of course he didn’t. Rebecca had every right to be here. Danny and Rebecca were in a good place, which Danny kept mentioning, apropos of nothing, every time Casey was trying to get some _work_ done.

And Danny was beaming back at her even though they still had a c-break left before it would be time for Danny to take her out to that new Italian restaurant he couldn’t shut up about.

“Rebecca,” said Casey, trying to keep his voice even and pleasant (and failing, if the look Danny was shooting him was any indication), “can you give us a minute?”

“Oh! Sure, of course.” She smiled at Danny one more time and blew him a little _kiss,_ of all the cutesy bullshit, before making her way off to the side again.

“What is it?” asked Danny, using his very best patient adult voice.

Casey found himself having to make something up on a spot—a question about how Danny wanted to do a bit they could have done in their sleep—but Danny just gave him a wry little smile and played along, like the good sport he was.

Afterward the show, Danny gave Casey a friendly slap on the back. “Don’t wait up for me,” he said with a wink and leer.

“But Danny,” Casey drawled, “I’ll worry if you’re not back by sun-up.”

“Dan,” said Dana, “keep the innuendo to a minimum, you’re still on mic.”

“Dana, I need to make sure Casey appreciates my domestic bliss. I have to draw the stark comparison between my happiness and his own sad singledom.”

“My singledom isn’t sad! I’m an eligible bachelor. I’m having the time of my life.”

“I thought it was confirmed bachelor,” Natalie chipped in over their earpieces.

“No, that would be if he were gay,” said Jeremy, dimly audible in the background.

“He could be gay!”

“Natalie, I was _married_ for _ten years,_ I’m not gay.”

“Not a guarantee,” Kim contributed. “I knew this guy—”

“The point is,” said Danny, clearly attempting to maintain the upper conversational hand, “Casey, my friend, you need to learn to date like an adult, and you need to find your own domestic bliss.”

“It’s not all that domestic.” Rebecca, sidling up, pecked him on the cheek. “I can’t cook and you don’t clean.”

“I clean!”

“We also don’t live together.”

“Tell me what’s not clean.”

“When was the last time you scrubbed your shower?”

“We could live together.”

“You need to either learn to clean or hire a maid service.”

“I’m not hiring a maid service!”

“Then we’re not living together.” She smiled sweetly at him and kissed his cheek again. Danny was smiling down at her, so much love and warmth in his face it was like radiative energy, like staring directly into the sun.

Casey had to look away.

When he wandered back into the control room, Kim was saying, “And that’s how I found out he was gay, which I should have figured out sooner.”

“Why?” asked Jeremy. “Because he didn’t want to sleep with you?”

“No! Although that can definitely be a warning sign. I’m pretty banging.” Kim gestured loosely at herself, and everyone nodded appreciatively.

“I’m glad we had this little talk,” said Casey. “Want to get a beer?”

“Eh,” said Kim sadly. “I’m getting up early for brunch.”

Dana hummed noncommittally. “I’m not really in the mood for it.”

“Not in the mood for a beer? Okay. Does _anyone_ want to get a beer?”

Which was how he ended up at Anthony’s with Natalie and Dave. Not a bad assortment of people, but it was a subdued night. Dave took off first. Casey still had half a beer to finish.

“Sorry if I made you uncomfortable,” said Natalie, picking at the label on her beer bottle.

“What?”

“With the gay stuff.”

He rolled his eyes. “It’s fine.”

“I was thinking about it and I realized if you _were_ gay, I wouldn’t want you to feel like you couldn’t tell me.”

“You were the one who thought I was in love with Dana this whole time!”

“You _were_ in love with Dana!”

“Yes! I was! And _ergo,_ Natalie, and I can’t believe I’m saying this again, I’m not gay.”

“You know Kim’s bi?”

“By what?”

“Bisexual.”

“Oh.” He found himself examining the drink coaster, despite the fact that, this being Anthony’s, he was by now intimately familiar with every permutation on the classic drink coaster that they had ever brought him.

“It’s not a secret or anything. I’m not…” Natalie trailed off.

“Betraying a confidence?”

“No. I’m not.”

“Okay.”

“You’re not going to be weird around her?”

“What? No.”

“Because sometimes you get weird about this kind of thing.”

“I’m not going to be weird.”

“Okay, good. Just keep that in mind, next time you go to talk to her and you realize you’re being weird.”

“Is she dating a woman?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Has she ever dated a woman?”

“It’s not like I asked!”

“So how sure are we that she’s actually bisexual?”

“Casey.” Natalie slapped the side of his head, albeit with very little force. “You think she’d _say_ it if she wasn’t _sure?_ ”

“I don’t know! How do I know what women think?”

“Maybe start by assuming _we are also people?_ ”

“That has never served me well in the past.”

“You’ve never _tried_ it in the past.”

Casey put up his index finger. “This is eerily similar to a very strange conversation I had with Danny not long ago. He was talking about stuff Abby said.”

“Well, Abby has a doctorate, maybe you should listen to her.”

“That’s a cheap shot.”

“I know all _about_ your envy of post-graduate degrees, Casey, Dana tells me everything.”

“Anyway, good for Kim.”

“You’re not going to make some kind of crack about wanting to watch?”

“Are you going to hit me again if I do?”

“Yes.”

He waved with his bottle. “There you go.”

“You know,” Natalie mused aloud, “I wondered a little bit after the thing with Shane McArnold.”

“Wondered about what?”

“Whether you were a little too into him.”

“Whether I was _what_?”

“Too into him. I mean, you were all a-flutter over that interview, you made a big deal, you said he asked you out—”

“To hang out, you pint-sized maniac! To _hang_ out!”

“I’m just saying, I wondered.”

“He gave me an interview. A long time ago, when I really needed it.”

“And he’s cute.”

“Natalie.”

“I’m just saying. He’s an idiot, but he’s cute.”

Casey sighed. “He is an idiot. We can agree there.”

“So you don’t agree he’s cute?”

“I think people who find a certain type of man attractive might find him cute.”

She frowned at him, a little moue of disgust. “That’s a man for you. I could show you Brad Pitt and you’d say, ‘I don’t know, I guess someone might find him attractive.’ Women can tell you when other women are attractive.”

“Well, Kim certainly could.”

“Noticing whether other people are attractive is a _human thing,_ Casey, it’s a thing humans do. Men are exhausting. _Straight_ men are exhausting. So much effort to defend yourself from any passing stray hint of gayness.”

“Natalie, if I buy you another beer, can we talk about literally anything else?”

“ _Literally_ anything else?”

“Literally.”

“Periods? My uterus? How Jeremy’s in therapy? Oh, that rhymed. How about the nagging fear that my prime childbearing years are passing?”

“…Yes.”

“Wow, okay. Yeah. Go get me a beer.”

 

_[March 8 th, 1973: The McCall household]_

_“Casey, when your father gets home—!”_

_Casey slammed the door, fighting to keep the hot tears from spilling. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t, it wasn’t. Steven was a jerk and he was so rude and anyway he smelled like cow poop all the time, just because he helped his dad on their farm he thought he could talk to Casey like that—_

_It was still two hours until his father was due to get home, and that gave him plenty of time to peel out of his leotard, change into a t-shirt and sweatpants. He still felt cold. He curled up in his bed under the covers._

_He drifted off without meaning to. When he woke up, the door to his room was opening._

_His father sat on the edge of the bed next to him, just the light spilling in from the hall and the blue light of the evening outside through the window._

_“Casey,” said his dad, “your mother tells me you got in a fight at school today.”_

_Casey blinked hard, trying to keep from crying again. “Yeah.”_

_“Yes,_ sir. _”_

_“Yes, sir.”_

_“Sit up.”_

_Casey struggled to pull himself upright. He kept his shoulders hunched against his father’s cold disapproval._

_“I don’t care why you were fighting.”_

_“It was Steven Green! He said only girls take gymnastics! He said—”_

_“I said I don’t care. When you act like that, you show no self-control. That’s a reflection not just on you and your lack of discipline, but on me and your mother, as well. Do you understand that?”_

_“Yes. Sir.” His lip was trembling. He couldn’t quite keep the tears in._

_“Now stop crying before I give you something to cry about.” His father sounded exasperated. “You’re too big for this kind of nonsense.”_

_“Yes, sir.” Casey bit the inside of his cheek, hard, to distract himself._

_“Is it the gymnastics? Do we need to take you out of that?”_

_“No!” He knew he was being too loud. “I love gymnastics!”_

_“Well, then you’d better act like it. No fights.”_

_“Yes, sir.”_

_“I mean it. If you can’t control your temper, you can’t be trusted with the responsibility of competing. It’s embarrassing to me when you act out.”_

_“Yes, sir,” whispered Casey, and pinched the web between his thumb and fingers with his other hand, digging his nail in so the pain became bright and loud and clear in his brain, and took away the need for tears._

_His dad kept talking. Casey kept gouging his nails in harder until finally, finally, the lecture was over, and his dad left._

_He didn’t get a spanking that time, which was good. Casey thought it was probably because he’d managed to be mostly quiet and respectful. His dad was always talking about respect._

 

_[September 9 th, 2000: Office]_

Casey looked startled when he walked in to find Dan on the couch, which probably meant that Casey was startled.

“Danny?” Case set his stuff down carefully. “You okay?”

“Uh, no. Not particularly.” Dan sighed, stretching slowly so that every joint in his neck popped at once.

“Did you sleep here?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Rebecca and I broke up.”

“Oh.” Casey sat down at his desk, moving like he’d turned into a geriatric wreck. Or like he was afraid any sudden movements would startle Dan and send him fleeing into the wilderness.

“Probably should have seen it coming.”

“I don’t know, Danny. I thought you were in a good place.”

“Yeah. I mean, that’s the problem, though. We got to this point where we were both in good places individually and it was like… all of the sudden I could see that we weren’t in a good place _together,_ the place we were in was this… shelter, I guess, for both of us. Where I could be this big hero and she could be my fair maiden. And it wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t working.”

“You could see,” said Casey.

“Yeah.” Danny bent to touch his toes. His back cracked another half-dozen times.

“Did you… break up with her?”

“I guess. It was more mutual, though. I think she knew, too.”

“Are you okay?”

“You know? I think I am. I think this is for the best. We weren’t together very long the first time, and honestly not very long this time. I think I’d built her up as this perfect woman in my head, and who’s going to be able to compete with that?”

“Nobody,” said Casey with such vehemence that Dan was surprised. Casey blinked, like he’d surprised himself, too, and added, “I’m sorry it didn’t work out. I know you were hoping.”

“I’m always hoping.” Dan gave him a crooked smile. “I don’t have to stop hoping. I’m only thirty.”

“Thirty-one.”

“Not _yet,_ buddy.”

“Anyway, you’re hardly ancient.”

“That’s right. My thirties will be a time of raw dynamism.”

“Is that even a word?”

“It’s definitely a word.”

“And you mean what by it?”

“I shall be dynamic. From ages thirty to thirty-nine, inclusive, I will be a font of magnetic, charismatic power. Galvanic, one might say.”

Casey actually laughed out loud. “I’m glad you’re so optimistic.”

“Your thirties, on the other hand, have been characterized by a sad lack of even trying.”

“I date!”

“Casey. When was the last time you even went out on a date?”

Casey shrugged one shoulder. “It’s been a little while, so sue me.”

“I don’t think there are any damages I could seek to recover. I don’t think your sex life has affected me financially.”

“See, that, right there, is Rebecca and all of her… legal knowledge, talking.”

“Rebecca wasn’t in Legal.”

“No, but her friends were.”

“That’s true.”

“You made me go on a double date.”

“Linda was nice!”

“Linda was a contracts lawyer. After listening to her for two hours, I can confidently say that she does something with contracts.”

“So you’re saying I absorbed some legal knowledge from hanging out with them?”

“God knows you didn’t pick it up around here.”

“Fair enough.”

“Are you doing all right?” Casey looked a little pinched as he asked, like he was afraid of what Dan might say.

Dan nodded. “Yeah. It’s not… I mean, it’s rough, I liked her a lot, but there’s a difference between loving someone and wanting to save them, you know?”

Casey’s lips quirked on one side, not quite a smile. “Yeah, I’m passingly familiar.”

“And she’s a great woman. Really great. But the fact of the matter is, I decided I was in love with her on based on pretty scant evidence, and being able to charm her… isn’t the same thing as being able to make her love me, either.”

“You charm everyone.”

“Not so much lately. Abby has me working on not trying so hard.”

“Well, you’ve charmed all the ladies around here.”

“Yeah. Hah, can you imagine if I tried to date Kim?”

“Pretty easily, as it turns out. She’s hot, she’s fun. Why _haven’t_ you tried to date Kim?”

“I don’t know. We just didn’t click. There isn’t that spark.”

Casey sighed. “That’s… It’s been a long time since I met anybody I had a spark with. I’m starting to think I should look for a good cook who knows her Oxford commas.”

“Don’t settle.” Dan pointed across the office at him. “Settling is how you ended up with Lisa in the first place.”

“It really wasn’t.”

“Not you. _She_ settled. She knew you weren’t exactly what she wanted but she said yes anyway. That was stupid.”

“God damn, Danny, what kind of point are you trying to make here?”

“Just that you have to—if you’re going to try to make something work, you should start out with the, just _the_ most solid foundations.” Dan propped his feet up on his desk and stared at the ceiling. “Life’s enough of a pain in the ass without handicapping your chances from the get-go.”

“Huh.” Casey huffed vaguely at his computer. He didn’t disagree.

 

_[September 10 th, 1988: Hotel conference room in Michigan]_

_Dan watched Casey and Lisa, who kept glancing at each other and laughing spontaneously. Lisa looked beautiful—all golden-brown hair, spilling over her shoulders in waves, a half-up half-down style that made her look like a fairytale princess. The off-the-shoulder puffy sleeves gave her neck the illusion of being even longer._

_Lisa was the kind of pretty Dan would have pictured for Casey, if he’d had to picture something. She was wearing a lot more makeup than usual; he’d said something about it to his date, Karen, who’d shrugged it off. “Have to, if you want it to show up in pictures,” she said pragmatically. She was a girl he’d met at the station and tried his best to charm. It was unclear whether she was his plus-one or vice versa, since she knew Lisa, but either way it had worked out._

_At this point Karen seemed willing to be charmed. He had hopes for the evening, although those hopes rested in large part on her having a room of her own, because he was crashing on the couch of one of his friend’s fraternity brothers._

_Lisa smiled again; it looked genuine. The hot pink blush on her cheeks reminded Dan of china dolls. She’d teared up at the ceremony, and she was getting misty again, dabbing surreptitiously at her mascara-laden eyes with her napkin. The maid of honor, Lisa’s sister, was almost through her toast. The waiters were hovering at the periphery, waiting for the parade of microphone hogs to end._

_Finally the maid of honor handed the microphone to Danny. He stood up. He wasn’t entirely sure, later, what he’d said. Something about not having known Casey and Lisa long, but knowing right away that they had something in common. An indomitable spirit. (He remembered that phrase the next morning, hanging over the toilet, regretting the seventh and eighth glasses of wine while Karen tried to be casual about asking when he was going to leave.)_

_But in that moment he looked at the two of them, like a matched set of Midwestern beauties, and knew that he was right. They were strong people. That would eat away at them; they were stubborn to the core, two hard surfaces that would break before they could wear each other down._

_When he got a slice of cake, it was too sweet. He hadn’t had cake that sweet, that heavy on the frosting, since Sam’s bar mitzvah. He had to go throw up in the bathroom. He splashed water on his face and detoured outside. One of the waiters was smoking a joint outside the conference room doors and offered him a toke. He refused politely._

_He waited until the horrible pounding of his heart in his chest subsided before he went back inside. He’d missed the first dance, and Casey was laughing, spinning a tacky satin garter around his finger. Casey caught Dan’s eye through the crowd and threw it to him, grinning so wide it showed all his perfect white teeth like piano keys._

_Dan smiled back at him, tucking the garter into his pocket. Dan’s pulse was going up again, he could feel that one-two-trip sensation, but he managed to stay in the room, at least._

_He ended up talking to Dana later. She was wearing one of the horrible cotton-candy pink bridesmaid dresses and dyed-to-match slingbacks, and she wanted to sit next to Dan and prop her aching feet in his lap, which was an easy enough request to accommodate. Dana hadn’t caught the bouquet, despite going for it with the determination of a linebacker._

_“Casey likes you,” she said briskly. She had, unfortunately, been outfitted with the same electric blush and makeup palette as Lisa and the other bridesmaids. She’d recently gone blonde. “He says you actually get stuff done.”_

_“I try.”_

_“Keep it up. Maybe someday we’ll hire you.”_

_“You seem pretty confident.”_

_“I have to.” She grinned at him, hard around the edges, but with a twinkle of real humor there. “Didn’t I tell you about my brothers? I have more of them than any woman needs.”_

_He looked back out at the dance floor. Casey and Lisa were snatching another dance together, now that things had slowed down. They were just swaying, cheek to cheek, whispering to each other occasionally._

_“He’s an interesting guy,” said Dan._

_Dana turned to watch Casey, too. “He sure is.”_

_“It works for him.”_

_“Usually.” There was a bitter little twist to her mouth. “Sometimes, he takes it too far.”_

_Dan glanced back at her. “Is there a story there?”_

_She shook her head, although not in denial. “There’s always a story, Danny, lesson number one. Lesson number two, don’t get it from the single, drunk bridesmaid.”_

_“Are you hitting on me? Because I’m flattered, but I came with—”_

_She roared with laughter and whacked his arm with her headpiece, which she’d taken off. It trailed ribbon and fake flowers. “Oh, Danny, you’re cute but you’re a baby! Honestly, how old are you? Seventeen, eighteen?”_

_“I’m nineteen!”_

_“Oh,_ nineteen, _I’m so sorry.” She laughed again. “There’s—look, there’s a_ big _difference between nineteen and twenty-three. For one thing, when do you head back to school?”_

_“Next week.”_

_“See, there you go. When you graduate, you’ll realize. You’re a totally different person once college is over. It fades so fast.”_

_“Really? It sounds like Casey knew he wanted to do sports in college, and he sure seems happy with it.”_

_“Casey thinks he knows what he’s going to want forever. Maybe he does. Who knows.”_

_Dan found Karen on the dance floor, after that, and busted his very best moves. She thought it was cute, he could tell. She took him back to her hotel room, and he buried his face between her thighs, breathing her in, tonguing her gently until she was yanking on his hair and coming hard. He always loved that part—the way women would breathe after they came, gulps of air, still trembling. She asked, “Do you want to fuck me, or do you want a blow job? I have condoms.”_

_“Blow job.” The room was starting to spin from all the wine, and if he was going to have trouble coming, he didn’t want it to be while he was inside her._

_She seemed happy enough to go down on him. While he was trying to picture something even sexier to push himself over the edge, the thought came into his head that in a suite at that very hotel, probably not far from Karen’s room, Casey and Lisa would be fucking. They’d done it before, obviously. But this was their wedding night, and given Casey’s vague feudalism, he’d probably feel that it was necessary to mark the occasion. Casey would probably be on top, sliding into Lisa—and Dan came, gasping, as Karen pulled off and finished working him through it with her hand._

_He slept like a stone after that, until the hangover woke him up. He only kept bits and pieces of the day, like a mosaic, fragments of smiles and laughter and sex. That was fine._

_[November 7 th, 2000: Office]_

“He’s not going to win.”

“He’s going to win, and then we’re going to enjoy a reversion to a pre-tool-based society.”

“You’re being very pessimistic, my friend.”

“And I don’t think you’re being pessimistic enough. George W. Bush is going to be a disaster on wheels.”

“Does that make him more disaster-y, if he’s on wheels?”

“It absolutely does. Increased velocity. More potential for destruction.”

“I mean, I agree he’s going to be a disaster if he wins, but I don’t think he’s going to win. Al Gore is a hell of a guy.”

“Al Gore is boring and the country likes politicians who pretend to be hayseeds.”

“What’s a hayseed?” asked Kim, arriving to dump a pile of papers on Casey’s desk.

“A hick, Kim. A bumpkin. A back-country unsophisticate.”

“Ignore him,” said Dan. “He’s on a tear about the election.”

“And that’s different from the last three months how?” asked Kim. “Casey, make sure you talk to Dana about Graphics.”

“Why do I have to talk to Dana about Graphics?”

“Because the last time she talked to them directly about what they did for the Oilers, Benjamin cried on my shoulder.”

“Benjamin?”

“One of the Graphics guys,” said Danny. “Keep up.”

“Did you not want Benjamin to cry on your shoulder?”

“I did not, no.” Kim perched on the edge of Dan’s desk. “He’s cute, but I’m seeing somebody.”

Dan reached over and fist-bumped her. She rolled her eyes, but she smiled.

“Yeah?” said Casey. “Anybody we know?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Are we going to meet this mysterious stranger?” Casey waggled his eyebrows.

Kim tipped her head to one side, considering. “Maybe. Depends, are you planning on embarrassing me?”

“Kim, I would never!”

“He is definitely going to embarrass you,” Dan said to her earnestly. “Please know this.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right.” She hopped back up off his desk. “Casey, talk to Dana.”

“I would be cool!” Casey shouted after her. “Many people are excited to meet me!”

“You’re being kind of weird.” Dan frowned at Casey. “Feeling all right?”

“I am _not being weird,_ ” Casey said. He threw an eraser at Dan. “I am _more_ than capable of not being weird, no matter what Natalie thinks.”

“Sure, big man.”

_[November 7 th, 1988: Dan’s dorm room]_

_“I don’t know, Casey. Dukakis has a lot going for him but Bush…”_

_“I can’t take another eight years of a Republican. I can’t.”_

_Dan leaned back against the wall, sighing heavily. He had his feet propped up on the bed, and Casey, on the other end of the phone line, was genuinely heated over the prospect. “It’s not like it’s going to make a huge difference.”_

_“Now that is your rank youth speaking.”_

_“Rank youth? Come on. You’re only a couple of years older than me.”_

_“But with a world of experience.”_

_“I bet I have more_ experience _than you do.”_

_“Oh, come on.”_

_“No, really. You started dating Lisa at eighteen. You ever see somebody before her?”_

_“I had a couple of dates.”_

_“Not even a couple of girlfriends? Just a couple of dates?”_

_“Oh, shut up.”_

_“Well, thank God for those dates. You’d be at terrible risk of being square, otherwise.”_

_“You’re just jealous you don’t have a wife.” Casey radiated smug certainty._

_“Sure, I’m jealous I’m not tied down. I can date whoever I want to, whenever I want to, with no one breathing down my neck.”_

_Casey snort-laughed. “Whatever. Anyway, Lisa’s brother is coming to visit us soon, so that’s going to be a pain. He’s just a kid, you know, younger than you. Driving himself up to see us for the first time, how about that?”_

_Dan hadn’t seen it coming. He wasn’t sure why—why tonight, and not another night—but abruptly he couldn’t breathe. Everything was going black and starry in his field of vision._

_“Danny?” Casey was worried. “Danny, what is it?”_

_“Sorry.” He had to clear his throat. “Sorry. I just—” but he couldn’t go on._

_“Danny,” said Casey slowly, “is there something wrong with your family?”_

_And that did it; Casey’s concern broke him the rest of the way, and before he really knew what was happening he was hunched over on the bed, sobbing, each breath clawing its way out of his throat._

_Casey was saying something, murmuring nonsense in a soothing voice, until Dan got enough control to stammer out about Sam._

_“I’m so sorry, Danny,” said Casey. His voice was like a cool washcloth on the back of Dan’s neck. “It’s not your fault.”_

_He couldn’t stop crying, though._

_He was expecting, after that—he wasn’t sure. Maybe for Casey to never call him again. Definitely for Casey to be disgusted with that big display._

_But Casey called again the next week, and the next, until Dan forgot to worry that he wouldn’t._

_[November 7 th, 2000: Set]_

“How do we not _know_ yet, Natalie? It’s almost midnight!”

“I’m telling you, we don’t know!”

“That’s unacceptable. That is just unacceptable.”

“Dan, please tell Casey I am not personally responsible for counting the ballots.”

“Casey, it’s really not Natalie’s personal—”

“It has to be _someone’s_ responsibility and they apparently aren’t doing it!”

_[February 20 th, 1986]_

_Dana was on her fourth beer, already mostly drunk, laughing with a high, bright, clear laugh that Casey could feel right through his bones. Like sunlight._

_“Dana,” he said, leaning on the arm of his chair, “you have a great laugh.”_

_She darted a glance at him, sharply. “Really.”_

_“Really! It’s like sunlight.” He might already be drunk, too. He wasn’t sure which beer it was or how long they’d been drinking. Long enough for the game of Clue to meander through a couple of rounds._

_She gave him a crooked, unhappy smile. “Don’t let Lisa hear you say that.”_

_Lisa was just—where was Lisa? Right, in the kitchen. Upstairs. She couldn’t hear. But why would she—oh. Lisa would get jealous. It seemed like Lisa was always getting jealous of Dana, asking pointed questions about late nights studying for their upper-level Communications classes, the journalism classes Dana had talked her way into and Casey had finally gotten the prereqs for._

_“Well, it’s true,” he settled for saying, after a lengthy internal debate._

_That was when he heard Lisa’s footstep on the stairs and decided to save the rest of the words he’d been thinking about saying. Lisa came in with the sandwiches she’d made for them, and Dana gave her a real smile. “Thanks!”_

_“It was no trouble.” Lisa settled back down so she was sitting in front of Casey’s armchair. “I was getting hungry, too. Where’s Kyle?”_

_“He’s in the bathroom.”_

_Lisa snorted inelegantly. “I bet! After all that beer—”_

_“It’s just in one end and out the other—”_

_Dana and Lisa were laughing together; Casey found himself just watching them. He didn’t understand, sometimes, why they were friends. They’d been more like friendly acquaintances when he met them, but they’d gotten closer in the three years since then. Sometimes they went out and did stuff together without Casey, which always gave him a weird feeling, even when it was something he wouldn’t have ever wanted to do, like going clothes-shopping. Which was also always an opportunity to say the wrong thing to Lisa—tell her when something didn’t work on her body, like he’d tell the women in his Comm classes before they had their presentations—and so it was really better if he didn’t come along._

_Still, he hated feeling left behind, and he’d wait impatiently for Lisa to get home from those days._

_When everyone was asleep, Dana crashed on the couch and Kyle on the floor, Lisa finished some half-assed tidying up and came to bed. Casey made room for her, and she snuggled into the crook of his arm._

_“Love you,” he murmured into her hair. He could feel her smile._

_“Love you, too.”_

_“Thanks for putting everything together.”_

_“It was fine. It’s just Dana and Kyle.”_

_“You put work in. I’m trying to say I appreciate it.”_

_“Well, I appreciate your appreciation.” She stifled a laugh. “God, I can’t believe us.”_

_“What do you mean?”_

_“In a house. It’s like we’re playing house. Hosting.”_

_“Hey, it was affordable!” The house was a wreck, but it was far enough away from campus that they really could afford it, and Casey liked that it was all theirs. That he lived in a house where they got to decide how to fill it, and they kept it full of love and laughter._

_“I know! I like it.” That was only half a lie; Lisa, he knew, hated fighting the good fight against the mildew and the weeds that went along with the house. “It just feels so strange. Are we grown-ups?”_

_“I think so, yeah.”_

_“When did_ that _happen?”_

_“Somewhere between freshman English and owning a real couch.”_

_That got her again, sending her off into giggles she tried hard to keep quiet._

_“And you know, we’re going to need to get used to houses,” he said, more serious._

_“Oh, yeah? Why is that?”_

_“For when we get around to kids.”_

_She made a soft, happy noise, snuggling into his side harder. “You’re going to be such a lame dad.”_

_“Hey!”_

_“No, it’s a compliment, trust me. You’re going to be, you know, the guy who shows up and makes totally dumb jokes and all the kids groan.”_

_“There’s nothing wrong with dumb jokes.”_

_She kissed him. “Not one thing.”_

_She fell asleep first; usually he did, but he was still feeling kind of jazzed from the drinking and the company. He was half-tempted to wake her up to talk some more, but he knew he should let her sleep. She was going in to work in the morning, and then classes in the afternoon, and he had the whole day off._

_He should clean the house while she was gone. He should—it wasn’t like he’d said anything too bad to Dana, right? He didn’t need to feel this kind of obscure guilt, nestled like a pearl in his ribs._

_She turned in her sleep and made a whuffling noise._

_[November 8 th, 2000: Office]_

“What the fuck do you _mean_ we _still_ don’t know for sure?”

“ _Why are you calling me before ten?_ We’ve _talked about this,_ Casey _._ We. Have. Talked. About. This.”

_[June 28 th, 1989: Office]_

_Casey was halfway through trying to figure out how to describe an irredeemably stupid play in a way that wouldn’t bring their executive producer down on him like a ton of bricks when he heard a cough at the doorway._

_He looked up, ready to say something snippy, and the words died on his lips. He found himself out of his chair without intending to stand, and he was folding Danny into a hug before Danny could finish saying, “Hey, man,” so that Danny dissolved into laughter. Danny hugged back—arms tightening around Casey, matching the almost painful strength of his grip—and for a crazy minute Casey couldn’t stand the idea of letting go, now that he actually had Danny here again, in the flesh._

_Nine months of phone calls was no substitute for seeing the kid who had, somewhere along the way, turned into his best friend. He liked Dana. Hell, he loved Dana, and not like that, no matter what Lisa insinuated when she was tired and it was late and Casey was in the doghouse. Dana was endless fun to talk to, intellectual and sharp without being pretentious or cold, but Danny… Danny picked up the dropped ends of Casey’s thoughts like he was reading them off a teleprompter. Danny was like the other half of his brain, like he’d gone through his life with one hand tied behind his back, and when Danny was there, he could suddenly do anything, everything._

_That vast, deep familiarity overwhelmed him in the space between squeezing Danny and hearing Danny start to draw in a breath, probably to say something, something about how long the hug was lasting—Casey let go like he’d been burned and stepped back, nervously combing his fingers through his hair for something to do._

_Danny was smiling at him, warm and fond, unbearable. Danny hurt his eyes to look at, but he couldn’t stop looking._

_“Glad you could make it back this summer,” said Casey, clapping Danny on the shoulder. “Think we can get you some more fun assignments this time around.”_

_“I’m not complaining, it’s great just to be here.” Danny was grinning at Casey like—Casey cleared his throat._

_“We’ll have you sitting over here…”_

_He knew he was hovering, knew he was dropping by Danny’s desk too often, but he couldn’t stop. He invited the interns out to lunch and paid for cheap teriyaki for all of them just to talk to Danny some more. The luxury in being able to relax into talking to him without worrying about how late it was getting or whether Danny needed to be doing his homework or whether Lisa was going to get pissed that he was spending more time on the phone than with her was unbelievable._

_After the show that night, Danny stuck his head into Casey’s office. “That was a great show, man!”_

_“It was pretty good.” Casey let himself smile. He felt like he’d been smiling all day._

_“Although I might have said the call was ludicrous, rather than ridiculous. You got into some pretty heavy alliteration there.”_

_“Hey, nothing wrong with some good alliteration.”_

_“Is there such a thing? I was unaware.”_

_“Danny,” said Casey, “we have to do a show together.”_

_Danny blinked, caught off guard._

_Casey found himself rushing to talk, to explain himself, vaguely sensing that he was making it worse. “I mean, half the battle is finding someone to do a show with who’s a competent writer, and who has good on-screen presence. I know you’ve been aiming to be on-air talent. I think it could happen, and I think it could be sooner than you expect. Dana’s already on the producer track. You and me as an anchor team, I think we could be gold.”_

_A flush spread over Danny’s face, turning him mottled pink, and Danny broke into a huge grin. “You think so?”_

_“I think so.”_

_“Well, far be it for me to disagree with the professional.”_

_“From me. Far be it from me. Because it has to be far away from you?”_

_“Are you going to be this nitpicky when we have a show?”_

_“Oh, no. I am going to be so much worse. You can’t even imagine.”_

_Danny threw his head back and laughed. Even under the universally unflattering fluorescent office lights, he was handsome. Ludicrously handsome. He’d do well on television; with good makeup and lighting he’d be flawless. The two of them had different looks, different appeals. They’d snag more female viewers than any sports show had a right to expect._

_When he got home that night, Lisa was crying in the kitchen._

_“Honey,” he said, dropping his things in the mudroom. “Honey, what’s wrong?”_

_“I don’t—even know,” she choked out between sobs, bending over the sink. “I didn’t think—I didn’t think I was going to miss working, but I don’t… what am I even doing, if I’m not working? Dana still has her job, and she seems so happy.”_

_“You’re doing the hardest job of all.” Casey wrapped his arms around her from behind, pulling her back against his chest. He could feel her trembling. “You’re going to be a mom. I don’t know anybody worth knowing who thinks that’s easy. It’s full-time. This is just… your sabbatical before you get started. Some downtime. A little vacation before you have every minute of your day spoken for by a tiny tyrant.”_

_She hiccupped a laugh through the tears. “A tiny tyrant?”_

_“A diminutive dictator, if you will. A miniature Mao.”_

_That got more laughter, and her shakes were slowing down. She eventually turned in his arms and kissed him, the kind of soft, deep kiss that meant that if he played his cards right, he might be getting lucky. In five years, he’d developed something of an encyclopedic knowledge of her kisses. That knowledge was a treasure._

_“You’re a funny man, McCall,” she said with a smile, plucking at the collar of his shirt._

_“And not just when you see me naked.”_

_She laughed again, and rubbed a thumb under one eye, erasing a stray tear. “You put up with me.”_

_“Well, you put up with me first, it only seems fair.”_

_After they went to bed, he ran his hand across her stomach, the smooth curve with its purple spreading stretch marks._

_“Don’t,” said Lisa, tapping his hand. “They’re so ugly.”_

_“They just mean so much.” He traced one with his fingertip. “We’re going to have a baby, honey. You’re making us a baby. From scratch.”_

_She laughed. “Well, you contributed a little something.”_

_“Yeah, but you’re doing all the work.”_

_“If you want to show your appreciation…”_

_“What do you need?”_

_“I really want something bitter.”_

_“Something… bitter.”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“Can you narrow it down at all?”_

_“Not really.”_

_He knocked around in the kitchen until he found a bottle of tonic water in the back and brought her that. She drank it, thirstily, and kissed him again. This time the shallow, soft kiss that meant_ thank you.

_“That was just right.” She yawned._

_He fell asleep with his arm draped over her hip, the smell of her on the pillows and in his nose. Sometimes he thought that was the best thing about living together—the way she was wrapped up in every bit of his life at home, like a haven._

_[April 23 rd, 2001: Office]_

Their phone rang. Danny had gone out to get food and come back; Casey was halfway through his sandwich. “H’lo?” Casey mumbled, hastily swallowing.

“Is Daniel Rydell there?” asked an unfamiliar, nasal tone.

“Yeah, hold on just a second.” He motioned at Danny, who picked up.

“Hi, this is Dan Rydell. …Yes, Daniel, since the other—yeah, I usually go by Dan still. That’s right. Dartmouth. Yes, her name is Catherine Brenner. She’s with—oh. Okay.”

Casey glanced up in time to see all the color drain out of his face. There were several long moments of silence, where Danny kept swallowing, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

“I understand,” said Dan in a low, terrible voice. “I’ll be there. We have a rundown at six, I’ll—I’ll come up after that? Okay. Great. See you then.”

Dan hung up the phone and then stared at it like it was going to bite him.

“What is it?” asked Casey, cracking mere seconds into his resolution not to ask.

Dan shook his head spasmodically. “Nothing.”

“That doesn’t look like nothing.”

“It’s nothing. Trust me.”

“You’d tell me if it was something?”

Dan opened his mouth, hesitated, and then nodded instead. The burning fear in the pit of Casey’s stomach didn’t subside through the entirety of the remaining time before and during the rundown, and it definitely didn’t get better when Dan headed upstairs.

Danny didn’t come back for almost forty-five minutes. Casey valiantly attempted to do actual work, but the words kept swimming on the page. They wouldn’t—why would they be asking about his _publicist?_ They wouldn’t fire him. Danny hadn’t done anything, not anything recently, and Trager hadn’t cared about Draft Day. Isaac would have known if something was coming. There were a hundred reasons why this couldn’t be so bad and every one of them crumbled when he stacked it against the way Danny had sounded on the phone.

When Danny came back he was deathly pale and his face was damp, like he’d splashed water on it in the bathroom. He walked to his desk and sat down, but it was like watching a zombie.

“Jesus Christ, Danny.” Casey put his hands flat on his desk. “What is it? How bad is it?”

Danny shook his head, then cleared his throat, then seemed to run out of juice again.

“What _is_ it?”

“There’s, uh.” Danny’s voice cracked. “There may be a tabloid story about me. You should ignore it.”

“What kind of story? You don’t have any illegitimate children, right?” As an attempt at a joke, it wasn’t much, and it went over like a lead balloon.

“No.” Danny rested his elbows on his desk and put his head in his hands. “It’s—well, it’s nothing. It’s just that, uh, apparently, there’s someone who’s going to come forward with a story about me at Dartmouth.”

“Oh.” That didn’t actually clear it up.

“About sleeping with me at Dartmouth.”

“And that’s _news?_ You were young, you were single. You had fun. Was it someone famous?”

Danny laughed hollowly. “No, I’m the only, the only famous one there. It’s a guy, Casey.”

“So,” said Casey. It was taking way too long for him to get the joke. It wasn’t processing. Wasn’t computing. “You’re going to have to respond? You’re just going to deny it, right?”

Danny hummed softly. “Actually, I don’t think I am.”

“What?”

“I’m going to refuse to comment.”

“That’s—” Casey came to a dead halt.

Danny made a vague noise of agreement. “There are people who are going to see that as an admission.”

“So issue a denial.”

“I don’t think I will.” Danny sat up convulsively, found the handle of his mug, and drank a slug of old coffee. “I think I’d rather leave it at no comment. I think,” he added, very quietly, as if he were speaking to his mug, “I’d rather not lie.”

“Oh.” Casey wondered why his heartbeat was so loud in his ears. Really loud. Roaring. That was probably a medical condition. He should get it checked out.

“My dad—” Dan had to stop again, and then, with effort, he continued. “He was always worried I was gay. I don’t think he even knew what bisexual _meant._ I’m—I’ve been just dating women since then, things are good there, nothing needs to change.” He said it like he was pleading for it to be true. “Nothing has to change. I’m not coming out. I’m just… done lying.”

“I—” Casey cleared his throat. “Are you coming out to _me,_ though?”

“Yeah.” Danny rubbed his eyes. The gesture made him look painfully young. “I guess I am.”

“So you slept with some guy in college—”

“Yeah.”

“And he’s trying to make something out of it now.”

“Yeah.”

“Does he have any proof?”

Danny shook his head. “It’s not like he has Polaroids or anything. We weren’t dating.”

“Has there been anyone else?” Casey realized his voice was too loud as he was speaking, and tried to bring it down.

“No. I always… knew I wanted to work in sports, you know? Ever since I was a kid. So I figured, get it out of my system, have a fling, whatever.” Danny shrugged. “And that was it.”

“But you’re…”

“Yeah.”

“And Catherine’s on it?”

“She is now. We called her.”

“How did you find out?”

“Somebody from the mag tipped off our PR people.”

“I’ve only met them like twice.”

“I know. I try not to meet them.”

“So it’s just going to be like a text article on how you had a torrid gay affair?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s not like the tabloid’s going to call it a torrid bisexual affair.”

“No, you’re right. They wouldn’t.” Danny managed a tired grin. “I wasn’t sure _you’d_ be able to say bisexual.”

“Hey, I’m hip! I’m a hip single man in his thirties. I have heard of bisexuality.”

“Outside of women in porn?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

Danny squinted at him. “Someone told you Kim’s bi?”

“Natalie.”

“Okay.”

“As in, Natalie told me, not as in Natalie’s bi. Although I guess it’s a possibility. Still, I feel like we would know. I don’t get the impression she’s real big on keeping secrets.”

“I don’t know where you’d get that impression from.”

“I know, I know. Call me crazy.”

“No, I pretty much stick to calling myself crazy.”

“Doesn’t Abby tell you not to do that?”

“Abby’s fine with whatever I choose to call my myriad dysfunctions.”

“Hardly _myriad._ ”

“That part was a direct quote.”

“That seems insensitive, coming from a shrink.”

“I’m told she would know.”

“Are you going to tell your dad?”

Danny laughed once, and it came out more like a nasty cough. “Hell, no.”

“Okay. I don’t blame you. He’s not exactly a happening guy.”

“Neither are you, and yet you’re not letting that stop you from being…” Danny trailed off.

“What?”

“I was expecting you to be more… freaked out, or something.”

“I’m not freaked out.”

“See, normally, when you say something like that, it’s just the beginning.”

Casey shrugged. “I’m embracing the new millennium. Kids these days, et cetera, and anyway, it seems like your day is going to be plenty shitty enough without me adding my own shit to the pile.”

“How colorful.”

“I’m not freaking out.”

“I appreciate that.” Danny looked impossibly flat, face stripped of his habitual ever-changing expressions; worn out, wrung out.

“Any time.” Casey got up. “I am, however, going to get something out a vending machine, because I feel like a day this shitty calls for something that’s full of Red Lake Number Seven and might give us cancer.”

“Get me Red Vines?”

“I’ll get you Red Vines. If I have enough change.”

“My hero.” Danny laughed and leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes.

Casey made it as far as the editing room before ducking in, sitting on the couch, and putting his head between his knees so he could hyperventilate in peace.

The door swung open. “Casey?”

“I’m freaking out,” Casey said to the floor, “but you can’t tell Danny.”

“Okay,” said Jeremy. He was a good egg.

“You’re a good egg, Jeremy. And I mean it. You can’t tell Danny. You can’t tell _Natalie._ You can’t tell anyone.”

“I have seen nothing and heard nothing.”

“I mean it. If you tell anyone that I’m freaking out, I’m going to do things that make Danny’s pranks look like an eight-year-old’s first year at summer camp. I will torture you with such tortures as Hieronymus Bosch never dreamt.”

“My lips are sealed.”

“ _Really_ sealed, or sealed like that time you weren’t supposed to tell anyone that Isaac was grooming Dana?”

“No one is ever going to let me forget that, are they?”

“Not as long as we live.”

“Do you need a paper bag or something? Do you have asthma? I have an inhaler in my desk.”

“No. I’m going to be done freaking out any minute now. I just needed to have a very small freak-out, and to do it in a calm, quiet room.”

“Am I disturbing your freak-out? I could go.”

“Actually, I think the tingling feeling is receding in my fingers and toes, so you might have ended the freak-out. It’s possible you’re a benevolent influence.”

“I have never been called that before. I think I like the sound of it.”

 

“Here’s the thing.” Casey threw down the packet of Red Vines.

Danny picked them up off his desk, sighing heavily. “What’s the thing?”

“The people around here.”

“Yeah.”

“You can’t avoid them.”

“No matter how much I might like to, past events have shown that you are correct.”

“You need a plan.”

“I don’t want a plan.”

“Nevertheless, you need a strategy. For instance, Natalie.”

Danny groaned. “Please don’t.”

“I assume you and Catherine have a plan for the public end of stuff.”

“Yes. I say ‘No comment’ any time someone asks and she says ‘No comment’ very loudly and at great length.”

“So what you need is a plan for the show.”

“I’m not going to address it on the show.”

“I know, I mean the people of the show. The show people. Natalie, Jeremy—”

“Do you think he’s a little homophobic? Sometimes I get that vibe.”

“Maybe? Probably. Dana, Isaac.”

“Isaac won’t care.”

“I agree, but he will be drawn into unwilling conversation on the topic.”

“Ugh.”

“Yeah.”

“I assume you’re trying to help me make a plan, even though we both know you _suck_ at plans.”

“I don’t suck at plans!”

“Casey. Remember the plan to stop Dana from marrying Gordon?”

“That was different.”

Danny rolled his eyes eloquently. “How, exactly?”

“It just was.”

“I had to do it for you.”

“You did. And you did a very bad job of it. Clearly you need help from a professional on creating a plan.”

“Oh, that’s rich. You’re a _professional?_ ”

“I am indeed a professional.”

“Of sports broadcasting, yes. Of plan creation, I think not.”

“The point remains, you need a plan, you don’t want to talk to other people about it, I’m what you’ve got.”

“Right.”

“Do you want to come out here?”

“No.”

“Fair enough.”

“It would be a big deal. It wouldn’t stay internal, and next thing you know there’s fucking… feature pieces on the gay anchor and I’m getting very subtly let go.”

“That wouldn’t happen.”

“Wouldn’t it?”

Casey was silent.

“Yeah.” Danny looked away. “That’s what I thought.”

“It’s not like we’re stuck with J.J. anymore.”

“No, but we’re still _sports guys,_ and there are certain expectations for sports guys that I would no longer meet. I’d be expendable.”

“No!” Casey inhaled hard through his nose. “Not to me. Not to the rest of the team. We’d go to bat for you.”

“They’re not idiots, Casey, they’d figure something out. They’d make it look good. You know, Abby knows, and now my _publicist_ and some randos from PR know. That’s it. I don’t mind letting people think they know, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to lose this show when we _just_ got to keep it.”

“Yeah.” Casey rubbed his forehead. “Yeah.”

“So I’m not coming out, I’m not talking to anybody here about it.”

“Good luck on that.”

“I mean it. I’m going to shut them down.”

“How?”

“I’ll show you. Pretend to be Natalie.”

Casey folded his arms and pitched his voice higher. “So, Danny, I saw in the _Enquirer_ that you’re into men. Does this mean I should set you up with my cousin? He’s a model, he works in Hoboken.”

“Natalie, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Pants, Danny. Sharing.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Are you gay?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Are you bisexual?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Wow, you are _really_ going full Bartleby the Scrivener on this.”

“You have no idea.”

“You think that’s going to work?”

Danny sighed. “Maybe. I hope so. If it doesn’t… I’ll deal with it then.”

“When is it coming out?”

“Thursday.”

“What rag?”

“InTouch. They needed to fill, I guess.”

“They always need to fill. They’re nothing but fill.”

“Case.”

“Yeah?”

Danny ripped open the pack of Red Vines. “I can’t… I can’t even begin to tell you how much I appreciate this.”

Casey shrugged. “What are friends for?”

“Historically speaking, lots of beer drinking and shit talking.”

“You stood up at my wedding.”

Danny laughed. “Yeah, after you’d known me for like three weeks! What kind of maniac lets a near-total stranger give a toast?”

“It was three months! You gave a great toast.”

“You had no way of knowing that I would. I could have said something terrible.”

“Danny!” Dana stuck her head in the door. “Have you seen the highlights from the Phillies?”

“Have I seen them?”

“That was the question, yes.”

“No, I can’t say that I have.”

“You do realize we’re going to need to _report_ on those same highlights in a very short time.”

“That I do.”

“I sincerely hope you’re planning on doing something about the highlights.”

“I am.”

“Oh, good. I’d hate to think you didn’t have a plan.”

Danny looked back at Casey, biting his lip, and they both cracked up. Dana looked back and forth between them in exasperation.

“I think we have a plan,” Danny managed.

Dana threw her hands into the air. “Fine! Great! As long as we _have_ a plan, I’m happy. Happy as a clam. A clam with a plan.”

“We’ll take care of it.”

“You’d better.”

In Dana’s wake, they looked at each other and couldn’t help cracking up again. It was good to see Danny laugh.

 

_[April 26 th, 1993: Casey’s condo]_

_“You what?”_

_Charlie was in bed already. Casey knew how much that meant for not overhearing parents fighting._

_“Come on,” he said. “Let’s not do this now.”_

_“When, exactly, would you like to do it?”_

_“I don’t want Charlie to hear us.”_

_“He’s asleep.”_

_“You’ll wake him.”_

_“Oh, because I’m so loud? Because I can’t keep it down?” Lisa’s face was starting to flush with rage._

_“No, damn it, that’s not what I meant.”_

_“No, okay, let’s get back to the big deal, here. You didn’t just seriously tell me you turned that show down.”_

_“It meant moving to New York. It’s such a bad city, I don’t want Charlie to grow up there—”_

_“It meant money! A lot more money! The chance to do all your own writing. I’ve been listening to you talk about how much you want to do your own writing for two years here. You know I hate L.A., how much worse can New York possibly be?”_

_“I’m not a comedian. It wasn’t right for me.”_

_“You’re not a comedian? You’re not a comedian. That’s funny, because you’re doing a pretty great impression of a comedian right now. You’re_ hysterical. _”_

_“Look, we’ve talked about this, you said you’d support my career—”_

_“I didn’t say I’d support career suicide! Who’s going to work with you if you don’t take this? What more could you possibly be holding out for?”_

_Something came over her face. Lisa stared at him, and her mouth formed a small, perfect o._

_“It’s not what, is it?” she said._

_He felt the dread hit before he’d even fully understood the words. He couldn’t speak._

_“It’s not what. It’s who.”_

_A wave of heat started at the back of his head. God, maybe this was what having a stroke felt like._

_“You want to work with Dana. You want to work with Danny. You know you can’t take them with you because they only want to work on sports.”_

_“I want to work in sports, too. That’s what I love. That’s what makes me happy.”_

_Lisa was still staring at him, and then she turned convulsively, hanging on to the counter. “God, I’m stupid,” she said to the knife block. “I’m a fucking moron. Here I am thinking we moved to L.A. because it was the best thing for your career, because it was this irreplaceable opportunity, so I pick up my two-year-old and we move out here, and then it turns out, hey presto! This opportunity is for you and Dana and Danny. Your_ brilliant _blonde producer and your baby-faced intern who’s all of the sudden ready to be on camera except no one else seems to see it. You’ve got a family already. How didn’t I see this? How did I miss that you made yourself a family, and it’s not me and Charlie?”_

_“That’s—that’s not true.” Casey felt breathless with the cruelty of it. “I love you and Charlie more than anything.”_

_“Anything, I’d believe. Not anyone.” Lisa inhaled deeply. “I would have moved to Antarctica for you. I loved you, I was so crazy in love with you, I thought you were this shining golden genius—and you know what you are? You’re a disappointment.”_

_Casey felt the top of his head come off. Just like someone had sawed off the top and his brain was escaping, like someone had detonated a depth charge between his ears._

_He turned around without a word, grabbed his coat, and walked out._

_He slept at the office that night._

 

_[April 27 th, 2001: Office]_

Dan kept a fixed smile on his face the whole way through the bullpen to their office. People jerked their heads up, startled, to look at him; conversations he passed abruptly died; there were pockets of suspicious silences.

“Hey,” said Casey as soon as Dan shut the door. “How are you holding up?”

“Are you kidding me? I unplugged my phone.”

“So you haven’t heard from your dad?”

“I honestly don’t know whether he’d call me. Or, for that matter, whether he’ll even find out. God knows he doesn’t read InTouch. I have to assume one of the neighbors will tell him about it in the name of sympathy.”

“The article didn’t really go into specifics.”

“Small favors. Dad would have a heart attack if it did.”

“I told Natalie this is so hard for you that Abby’s worried about it setting you back in therapy and that if she’s really your friend she’ll confine herself to gossiping without you.”

“That is… nice?”

Casey shrugged. “I try.”

“I’m seeing Abby tonight. I told her it was an emergency.”

“It is an emergency. I think that’s fair.”

“What do you think about leading with the Mariners?”

“I’m ambivalent.”

“You could have told me before.”

“That I’m ambivalent about the Mariners?”

Casey just stared at him, folding his arms.

“I could have told you. I didn’t, because it’s _not a big deal,_ it’s not something that’s still a part of my life, for reasons we discussed at great length yesterday, including but not limited to working in sports at my dream job with my dream team, and let’s be honest, if you don’t know a secret you don’t have to keep a secret, which is more comfortable for everyone.”

“Did you think I wasn’t going to want to be your friend anymore?”

Dan squeezed his eyes shut and rocked back in his chair. “I can’t express to you how badly I don’t want to be having this conversation.”

“Because I would have. Nothing would have changed.”

“Of course things would have _changed,_ Casey, you wouldn’t have meant for them to but they would have. You know how many locker rooms I’ve been in for this job? How many men would kick me out of said locker rooms if they knew something? And even if you meant well, you would have been watching me like a hawk.”

“What—”

“Either to make sure I didn’t do anything or that nothing happened to me. Or both. But either way, it would have messed up the dynamic duo thing we have going on here.” Dan opened a desk drawer at random. “Which is exactly why I probably should have just denied the story.”

“But you didn’t.”

He slammed the drawer shut. “Because I’m thirty-one, and I am so tired of lying I can’t even _begin_ to explain it.”

“See, that’s the thing! That’s the thing, right there. You keep telling me it’s a not big deal but it _is_ a big deal to you.”

“Yep.” Dan rocked back in his chair again, trying to get the wheels to come up off the ground. “It’s a big enough deal. It’s exactly this big a deal. It does not need to be any bigger. You do not need to make it bigger. You do not need to say anything to anyone on my account.”

“What about Natalie?”

“Unless you can keep Natalie away from me. Then you’re allowed to talk on my behalf.”

“I don’t know if I can do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because she’s headed this way.” Casey jerked his head toward the glass wall, and Dan followed the movement, looking out at Natalie barreling down on them.

“Dan!” she yelled as the door crashed open.

“Natalie.” He aimed for the carefree air of a man having beignets at Café du Monde. He suspected he didn’t quite achieve it, but it was worth trying.

“Who do I need to kill?”

There was a moment’s baffled internal rearranging. “For what? I’m not sure whether I should be trying to rein in your homicidal tendencies or not.”

“Whose fault is this article?”

“Well, I imagine whatever unnamed source they’re talking to.”

“Tell me his name and I’ll skin him and wear it like a suit.”

“I honestly don’t know his name, Natalie, that’s why he’s an unnamed source.”

“Oh, Dan.” Natalie compressed her lips sadly and shook her head at him. “I admire your resilience, I really do, but I’m going to need that name so I can turn his face into a leather purse.”

“I love you too, Natalie.”

“Shh. Don’t ruin my reputation.”

“You have a reputation?”

“I’m working on building one. I’m going to be scary.”

“Rather than cute?”

“Exactly.”

“Can’t you be both?”

“Not in this industry, Dan,” she said with patient condescension. “And certainly not as a woman.”

“I’ll defer to your superior knowledge in that department.”

“They should do a profile on Rebecca.”

“I think Rebecca would object to that.”

“Fine. They should do a profile on _you._ ”

“I really don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“No, hang on,” said Casey. “Natalie might be onto something. Have you talked about that with your publicist? See if you can find somebody to do just like a short thing on you and just talk about all the good stuff you’ve done?”

“What good stuff?”

“I don’t know, you do politics, right?”

“Not since I made an ass of myself in front of Hillary Clinton, and I can’t believe you’d bring that up. I was _this close_ to being her future Mr. Rodham.”

“Dan!” Natalie said sharply. “I don’t want to interrupt your fantasy life of being a sugar boy—”

“Isn’t it sugar baby?”

“Or rent boy,” Casey supplied.

Natalie continued, “ _But_ Casey and I are right. Talk to your publicist. And get me a name so I can skin _someone._ ”

“George W. Bush. We shared a magical night and he’s betrayed my trust. Please murder him.”

“Oh, honey, I wish, but you know and I know he didn’t go to Dartmouth and he would _never_ have played around with someone who didn’t come from old money.” She blew him a kiss on her way out, leaving him open-mouthed.

“The _effrontery,_ ” he said. Casey just laughed.

 

Casey was not going to tell Danny, then or ever, that he’d bought a copy of InTouch. It was a stupid, shitty thing to do. He could tell himself, and in fact _had_ told himself, that it was just so that he’d know what the article said in case he had to deny it for Danny, since Danny wasn’t going to deny it for himself.

But he read it, and then re-read it, over and over. Until every word was burned into his mind:

_An anonymous source tells InTouch that, back in his college days, Dan Rydell of Sports Night fame was a little less macho and a lot more flexible: according to our (very male and very good-looking) source, he had a fling with Dan when they were both at college in Dartmouth._

_“He was definitely open to the idea,” says the source. “We had a good time. It was more of a one-night stand, and I don’t know if he ever slept with another guy—I don’t think he had before. He never called! But the cute ones never do.” (Isn’t that the truth?)_

_Dan has been romantically linked to several women over the last couple of years, including Steve Sisko’s ex-wife, but at press time we believe the handsome sports anchor to be single. Which means he could be up for grabs for fans of all types. Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines! Let the games begin!_

He shoved it into the drawer of his desk at home where he kept his lease and his passport. The magazine slid under the hanging folders, and the inset pictures—Danny, laughing, grainy; a candid from a bar somewhere when he was younger, and then a man’s silhouette inside a heart with a question mark superimposed—slid to the bottom of his mind.

 

_[October 29 th, 1993: Office]_

_“Danny,” said Casey._

_“Yeah?”_

_Outside, L.A. was gearing up for a rip-roaring Halloween. Casey had seen half a dozen Jasmines and/or Aladdins already, and a really disconcertingly convincing Ross Perot. A Batman and Joker duo had been making out in a doorway he’d passed on his way back from grabbing a late lunch._

_“I had some feelers out, and I heard something.”_

_“What did you hear?”_

_“About a show in Dallas. Lone Star Television. They’re looking for a pair of anchors.”_

_“What, did they lose two of them? That seems like a lot to misplace, two entire adult humans.” But Danny had gone tense in his chair, despite how easy he was trying to play it._

_“Actually, yeah. They’re going to ESPN. It’s not right away, but they expect it to happen in November. They’re looking for some people who are willing to relocate on pretty short notice.”_

_“Did you tell them I live in a cardboard box and I’d be delighted to move to a warmer climate?”_

_“They’re interested in both of us, and Dana.”_

_“We’d get to keep Dana?”_

_“We’d get to keep Dana.”_

_“Would she be associate producer?”_

_“Yes, but their current executive producer is retiring in May, and he’s okay with training Dana as his replacement. She’s actually kind of the hook. They’re thrilled we’d come with a producer.”_

_“Casey…” Danny turned his head to look out the window of their office. It was a tiny, cramped room with their desks pushed together in the middle. Their knees ended up knocking more days than not. It didn’t bother Casey. “This is too good.”_

_“I know.”_

_“It’s too good. I’m concerned. It may be some kind of trap.”_

_“I think we should do it.”_

_“Of course we should do it. I’m just saying, if I get eaten by a witch, I want you to know that I died doing what I loved. Eating gingerbread. Hopefully. Is Dana on board?”_

_“Yeah. I talked to her last night.”_

_“We’re going to have a show?”_

_“If everything works out.”_

_“Holy shit.”_

_“I know you like L.A.”_

_“Are you kidding? I barely saw L.A. I’ve been here for like… eight months? It’s all smog and traffic jams. Take me to Texas. I’ve never experienced the true joy that I have to assume is authentic Tex-Mex food.”_

_Casey found himself laughing, a weight lifting. Lisa hadn’t loved the idea, but he’d talked about the real estate and how much house they could get for the salary he’d been offered and pointed out the good school districts, and eventually she’d thrown her hands up in the air and agreed._

_Here it was. The best-case scenario. He’d have everything. He’d have the wife and kid, and he’d have the dream job, and who cared if it was in Texas? He’d have Danny and Dana and he’d never have to face a day at work without anyone he gave a damn about._

_“Lone Star,” said Danny contemplatively. “I like it. It has a noble ring to it. On-air! They saw my tapes?”_

_“Yeah.” Danny had been in the sub pool for ages, and he had some good segments. Casey had pushed hard with his contact about what a quality writer Danny was, in addition to his on-air charisma, and they were offering Danny less—a lot less—because he didn’t have Casey’s time on-air, but Danny was going to be stoked about it anyway._

_“Casey, my friend, I could kiss you right now.”_

_“Please don’t,” said Casey, “I’m married.”_

_“True. I’m sure Lisa wouldn’t approve.”_

_“Not in the slightest.”_

_“Any objection to celebratory dancing?”_

_“None whatsoever.”_

_“Dana turned me on to it.” Danny did a truly appalling rendition of the Robot that had Casey clutching his sides and wheezing with laughter._

 

_[April 27 th, 2001: Abby’s office]_

Abby heard him out, propping her chin on one hand as she listened.

“Huh,” she said when he finished.

“Huh? That’s all you’ve got?”

“What do you want me to have?”

“Oh, great, more of this.”

“I’m serious. What do you want me to say? What are you hoping I’ll tell you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe that—I did the right thing.”

“Do you think you did the right thing?”

“Yeah.”

“So why is it important to you that I tell you that?”

“I don’t know! It’s not like I have any experience with this. _Any_ experience. Before yesterday, the only person who ever knew I was bisexual was Greg.”

“Do you feel like you don’t know how to be bisexual?”

“What’s there to know? I’ve been ignoring it, being it, whatever, for a long time. I think I can keep right on rolling.”

“Can you, though?” Abby’s eyes were terribly gentle. Implacably kind.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”

“What does being bisexual mean to you?”

He slouched harder into the couch. “Not much.”

“It means enough that you refused to deny it.”

“It’s just—it’s a part of me. I don’t think I should have to hide it, but I do, and I love my job, I love my career. So I hide it.”

“Are you afraid you’re missing out on something?”

He was stymied. “Like what?”

“A meaningful relationship with a man? More sexual experience with men?”

“No. I don’t think I’m missing out on much there.”

“Don’t you?”

“What’s wrong with relationships with women?”

“Nothing, I would say, but you don’t tend to have lasting relationships with women, do you?”

“Not _lasting,_ I’ll admit, but it’s not like I don’t love them, or like I don’t enjoy sleeping with them. I’m not in denial.”

“Does part of you wonder if things would be different with men?”

“Not really.”

“Or whether the problem isn’t women versus men, but this same fundamentally wrong thing with you, that you don’t deserve love and intimacy from anyone? Regardless of their gender?”

“I don’t know why you went there with this.”

“I think it’s not unrelated. I think even if you fell in love with a man, you wouldn’t feel you deserved to be happy, and you’d sabotage yourself the same way you sabotage yourself with women.”

“It’s a moot point, anyway. It’s not going to happen. I’m not going to date men.”

“Danny, you can decide not to _date_ men, but you can’t decide not to fall in love with one.” Abby smiled at him; it didn’t reach her eyes. “It doesn’t work that way. People don’t work that way.”

 

By the end of that night’s show, Dan had heard back through the grapevine that he had a) slept with a Cardinals player for a story, b) been a rent boy because of his extreme poverty, c) never slept with a man but had in fact slept with a woman who had played professional volleyball for Romania at the Olympics, and d) been mistaken for a fey 1980s singer in a dimly-lit nightclub.

“The volleyball one was me,” said Casey. “I panicked.”

“I’ve heard worse.”

“I said she was well over six feet tall and rumors were started.”

“Okay, that’s a little worse.”

“I’ve told everyone who asked me that I couldn’t confirm whatever they were asking about and then I winked. Everyone should be thoroughly confused by now.”

“I’ll take confusion.”

“I thought you might.”

“Are you sure you winked adequately? Like, did they really know it was a wink?”

“I wink just fine.”

“It’s just that you haven’t actually successfully flirted since the Stone Age.”

Casey turned and winked, slowly and exaggeratedly, at Dan. “Good enough?”

“I think it’ll do.”

Casey stretched. “You want to get a beer?”

“Nah, I think I’m going to head home and scream into my refrigerator for a good ten, fifteen minutes straight.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“That’s what I thought. Then I think I have some leftover Thai that’s still good.”

“Danny?”

“Yeah?”

“Who was he?”

Dan was silent for a long time. “What do you want to know?”

“Just… how did you know him?”

“We were in a class together. Econ 101. We had to do a project together, and he—he came over to my dorm room, and—he was _really_ cute, and I was young and horny, and he kissed me. And I thought that was a pretty good idea.” Dan shrugged, uncomfortably aware of how tense he was. “It was just the once.”

“Huh,” said Casey.

“I don’t think Abby was actually surprised. I can’t decide if I’m offended or not.”

“I think her job involves pretending never to be surprised. I wouldn’t second-guess it too much.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

Dan rolled out his stiff neck and got up, reaching for his coat.

“What did he look like?”

He turned back to look at Casey, who was staring intently at a pencil he was holding. “What?”

“What did he look like?”

The question lay in the silence between them for a moment. Dan couldn’t figure it out, didn’t know what to do with it.

“He was—tall, I guess, and blond. He played basketball in high school.”

“You said he was really cute?”

“Yeah. He was.”

Casey nodded like something had just been decided. “Okay.”

“Okay? Did you need approval?”

“No, I just—I wondered.”

“Okay, Poirot. Whatever.” A yawn took Dan by surprise. “I’m going to go sleep off the stress. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Sure.”

_[January 1 st, 1994: Dana’s apartment]_

_“Jesus,” muttered Casey, sitting up. His mouth felt like cotton and his hands were sticky and he had a headache._

_“Take it easy, Slugger,” said Dana. Unfairly, she was already standing up, drinking a cup of coffee. He thought it was probably the smell that had woken him up._

_“Ugh.”_

_It was coming back to him, patchily: he’d gotten drunk at Dana’s New Year’s Eve party and Lisa—he and Lisa had ended up in a furious whisper-fight in the bathroom, because he didn’t want to leave yet and Lisa was talking about how their baby sitter was costing them an arm and a leg and he’d said he could afford it and she’d said he shouldn’t keep making all their financial decisions without her and he’d said… oh, Christ. He’d said that as long as he was earning the money he thought he had the right to decide how they spent it._

_She’d said he should just stay at Dana’s and she’d see him whenever, because she sure as hell wasn’t driving his drunk ass home to wake Charlie up._

_“I am in so much trouble.”_

_“You_ really _are.” Dana raised her eyebrows at him. “And from what I heard, you deserve it.”_

_“I really do.”_

_“It’s going to take a lot of flowers to dig yourself out of this one.”_

_“I don’t think flowers are going to do it.” He groaned, lying back down. “Some days I don’t know why we even do this.”_

_“You love each other and have a child together.”_

_“At least one of those things is true.”_

_“Casey,” said Dana, “please don’t ask me to comfort you about your marriage.”_

_He looked up at her. She was watching him with an impassive face, holding her coffee mug. She had damp hair—she’d already showered, and she was fully dressed for the day, looking crisp and professional. Better than anyone had a right to look the day after New Year’s Eve. Her hair was just catching the morning light through the living room window, glowing like gold._

_“You look good,” he said. “Big plans today?”_

_“Hardly. I just wanted to make you feel as gross as possible in comparison to me.”_

_“It’s working. I feel disgusting.”_

_“That’s because you are disgusting.”_

_“I need to get home so I can take a shower.”_

_“I’m not driving you.”_

_“Call me a cab?”_

_“Call one yourself.” She tossed the phone book at him. It landed heavily on his stomach, and he groaned._

_“You have no pity in your soul. The quality of mercy—”_

_“Has nothing to do with dipshits pissing off their wives when they’re drunk.”_

_“Did I do anything else shitty?”_

_“You mean, to me?”_

_“Yeah. Or anybody else.”_

_“No, you kept it to being a dick to Lisa.”_

_“I don’t try to be a dick to her.”_

_“I know.” Dana laughed humorlessly. “You don’t have to try, Casey. It comes naturally to you.”_

_“I don’t know what she wants from me.”_

_“She wants…” Dana trailed off. “I don’t know. You should ask her.”_

_“It sounds like you have a guess, though. I’d like to hear it. As a favor.” He gave her his best winsome smile, although he had to assume it was a little worse for the wear._

_“I think she wanted someone else.”_

_“Wow. That’s…”_

_“Don’t listen to me. I don’t read minds, I don’t know what I’m talking about.”_

_“What do you mean?”_

_Dana sighed. “I think she wanted someone who was going to be ambitious in a more… direct way. You have to realize, she’s still furious about the show.”_

_“It’s a great show!”_

_“Conan’s show.”_

_He digested that in silence for a minute. “That wasn’t right for me.”_

_“She doesn’t understand why.”_

_“Then she doesn’t understand me.” He looked up at her. Maybe it was the insistent, throbbing headache, but he felt like saying it out loud. “You understand me.”_

_Dana’s lips pressed together tightly. He glanced up from them to her eyes. They were too bright, and she was blinking hard._

_“Don’t do this to me, Casey.” Her voice had gone flat. There was nothing fun or playful left, not even the sympathy she’d been holding out a few minutes before. “You picked Lisa. You picked her on purpose. I’m not… I’m not a consolation prize, where every time something gets fucked up with Lisa, you get to show up and ask me to moon over you and patch up your hurt feelings. You’re the one fucking things up with Lisa. You’re the one making your own life hard. Don’t make mine hard, too.”_

_“I’m…” He couldn’t figure out what to say. He settled for nodding._

_She nodded back, and then went to sit at the counter on one of the bar stools. “Call a cab.”_

_“I’ll call a cab.”_

 

_[September 5 th, 2001: Restaurant]_

“Happy BIIIIIIIRTHDAY, dear Casey,” sang everyone, although honestly it was mostly Natalie belting it out at the top of her lungs in a goodwill gesture more than partially fueled by three Cosmos, “happy biiiiiiiirthday to YOOOOOUUUUUU!”

Casey was struggling to keep a straight face. The wedge of cheesecake sat in front of him with a solitary candle jammed into it. He blew it out neatly.

“Make a wish!” yelled Natalie.

“I made one, trust me.”

“So, my aged friend,” said Danny as Casey took a bite, conversations breaking out around them. “How does thirty-six feel? Is it a vast, engulfing sadness of knowing that the process of aging is ever-accelerating?”

“Big words from someone a mere four years younger than myself.”

“At the moment, I am _five_ years younger than you.”

“That’s not how math works. That’s also not how time works.”

“Nevertheless, I think you’ll find it checks out.”

“Thanks for not singing to me on air today.”

Danny shook his head. “You can thank _Mallory._ The successor of Marty Sheinbaum.”

“Okay, I’m not sure what to do with that.”

“Believe me, neither is she.”

“Leaving that aside, it’s just as well you didn’t sing.”

“I know.”

“And not just because you can’t sing.”

“I can sing!”

“Danny. I’ve heard you.”

“I can sing just fine.”

Casey said to the table at large, “Who thinks Danny can sing?” The sole person to put a hand up was Kim; Dave and Will glared her into lowering it again.

“I’ll remember this betrayal,” Danny said to them. Then to Casey, “Fine, I’m not a classically trained vocalist.”

“You can _almost_ sing Tom Waits. I’ll give you that. Although it’s mostly because Tom doesn’t do a lot of what I might call actual singing.”

“You’re a bitter old man.”

“You’re a young man who would get kicked out of karaoke.”

“Hah! I’ve been to karaoke.”

“I’m frankly surprised you’re allowed back.”

“I may or may not be allowed back, but that has nothing to do with the quality of my vocal performance.”

Casey took another ostentatious bite of his free cheesecake. “You just wif you had cake,” he mumbled around it.

“Yeah, I don’t know how I’ll survive without cheesecake. It’s not like we’re in New York City, where I can get the finest cheesecake money can buy, or like I’m a sports anchor with a budget that does, on occasion, permit me to purchase baked goods.”

“Mmmm,” Casey said, and waved another bite on his fork.

Danny dissolved into laughter. “You unbelievable _weirdo,_ ” he said. “I can’t believe _you’re_ my best friend.”

“And yet, I am the best friend with whom you are stuck.”

“I just can’t wait until you turn forty. You’re going to lose your mind. You’re going to freak out like you have never freaked out before. I bet you’ll start making Hair tell you every day whether you’re getting thinner.”

“Do you think my hair’s getting thinner?”

“No, I’m just saying—”

“Because I haven’t noticed any changes, why would you—”

“Get it together, man!” Danny smacked him on the back of the head. “You’re still very handsome.”

“Thank you.”

“And you will be even when you have very little remaining hair. Ow!” Danny rubbed the back of his hand, which now sported several bright red dots where Casey had tried to dig in the fork tines.

“Thank God you’re such reasonable and mature men.” Dana rolled her eyes heavenward. “I need more wine for this.”

Natalie brandished a bottle at her. “Champagne?”

“Yes, please.”

Danny held his glass out, too; after only a moment’s glare, Natalie refilled it.

 

_[October 18 th, 1995: Casey’s condo]_

_“I should have known,” said Lisa dully. She kept making herself a cup of tea, the motions repetitive and mechanical. “You didn’t even try to hide it or deny it.”_

_“I don’t know what you mean.”_

_“Don’t you remember what you said about not taking the Late Show?”_

_“Uh.”_

_“You said you didn’t want to move to New York. You said it was a dirty city. You said you hated it.”_

_“This is different,” he said, helplessly._

_“Of course it is. It’s different because Dana and Danny are coming. You get to keep them.”_

_“We’re a good team. I don’t know why I have to argue about that.”_

_“Oh, you don’t. Of course you’re a good team. Lone Star loves you. They’ve been jacking your salary and benefits for two years. God, the party they threw for Danny’s birthday! They fawn all over you three. They lick your boots.”_

_“I don’t understand why you’re so mad.”_

_“You didn’t want to move to New York when it was big money and your own show and your son could have grown up in one place, finally, stayed put and made friends and gotten an education without jumping all over the place. When I could have made friends and put down roots and maybe gotten a job again. I hadn’t been out of the workforce that long. But two and a half years later, suddenly New York is fine. Suddenly uprooting Charlie is fine, and me leaving all my new friends behind—”_

_“What new friends?” he asked snidely. “The red and the white ones, we can just pack and bring with us.”_

_“Shut up.” She pulled the tea bag out of the cup and carefully tossed it into the trash. “Now that your work family is all going together, it’s fine. Right?”_

_“It’s not just Danny and Dana, there’s Natalie, that great associate producer—she’ll be coming, too, and it’s an incredible opportunity.”_

_“That’s what you said about Lone Star, and not, somehow, about Late Night. Fucking Late Night. Sometime I watch Conan and I pretend I married him instead. I bet he doesn’t pull this shit with his wife.”_

_“Maybe you should have married him instead.”_

_“You’re selfish. You’re so selfish it makes me sick. I get physically ill, thinking about how ready you are to throw our lives into total chaos to keep the people you love more than you love us. And do you even really see them as people? Do you understand that Dana is someone totally separate and apart from you, that she has feelings, she loves people, she hates people, that you’ve never even met?”_

_“Who? I thought I knew everybody she hated.”_

_“Casey, shut the fuck up. I’m telling you that Dana is a person, a whole person, without you, and that Danny lives in your shadow because you like him there. You keep him there. You do it on purpose, even if you don’t think about it, because you need to be the king in your little corner of the world. You don’t know how to let people shine. You sure as hell were never going to let me outshine you, were you? It wasn’t even an option to have my own career.”_

_“You never seem particularly interested in working after Charlie was born.”_

_“Do you even remember that you told me not to? You told me you wanted me to have all the time I needed with Charlie. And that was a lot of time, and it was even more because you were barely home and when you were home your brain was still at work. You haven’t been with me in years. I’ve been alone this whole time, and I’m only just now really understanding that. No wonder I’ve felt lonely. I’m not married. I’m contractually obligated.”_

_“Lisa. Please. New York is going to be amazing. You’re going to love it. There’s culture everywhere. Charlie is going to have the chance to grow up in a city with the best schools in the country, with museums, art, music. I know I said things about New York when I was turning down Conan’s show, and you’re right. You’re right. I didn’t want to do it by myself. I didn’t think I could. And I know it’s not the step up you were hoping for, but it is a big step up. Please, for my sake, for Charlie’s sake, please give New York a chance.”_

_She drank her tea. The steam rose off it into the air._

_“When do we have to move?” she finally asked. “I’m going to need a real estate agent up there. I’m not making multiple trips to pick out a place. And we’re not going to be in Manhattan. The rent is crazy and it’s not safe.”_

_That night he stared at the ceiling. He was sleeping on the couch—he seemed to sleep there more often than not these days—and he kept thinking about it. Selfish. Keeping Danny in his shadow. He wasn’t—if anything, he’d helped Danny along. Danny was a talented kid. (Not much of a kid anymore, really. He was twenty-six. A string of girlfriends, but nobody that serious, no hint of getting married yet. Charlie was two when Casey was Danny’s age. So not a kid at all.)_

_Danny was twenty-six and he’d been on the air since twenty-four in an industry where you were supposed to have insane amounts of experience before you got that shot. Casey had helped him. Pulled him along. Dragged him in Casey’s orbit. Not his shadow._

_He needed Danny. He needed Danny to be there, to take the jokes and run with them, to give a shit about the boring sports, to be smiling and laughing and dancing and moving. Danny was the charmer. Casey was solid, a kind of pleasant good-looking that grandmothers and mothers could approve of, that men all across the Rust Belt could tune in to and trust. But Danny had charisma that viewers raved about. Danny was younger, cooler. He brought in a different audience._

_It didn’t fucking matter what audience he brought in. Casey needed him. He didn’t want to work with anyone else ever again. There was never going to be a partner like Danny._

_New York was going to have Danny. Lisa might think Casey wanted to go for Dana, but she was wrong. Dana was a plus, a huge benefit, but it was Danny that was absolutely critical. Had been from the first time they did a show on Lone Star._

_That first show had been magic. Like skating on perfect ice. Like the feeling of flying through the air, knowing that you were going to catch the horizontal bars. Knowing that you were going to make it. Weightless and brilliant and alive._

 

_[September 11 th, 2001: Casey’s condo]_

“Turn on the TV! Channel two!”

“What?” Casey blinked, trying to clear the sleep from his eyes. He’d just been—dreaming—

“ _Turn on the TV!”_ Danny’s voice was all wrong.

Casey fumbled the remote off the nightstand with his free hand. As the television came on, he started to hear the urgent voice of the newscaster.

His brain didn’t take it in, though. The words didn’t make sense. As the picture came up, he stared in blank shock that quickly transmuted to horror.

He could still hear Danny breathing on the other end of the line.

“What,” he managed.

“They hit the World Trade Center.” Danny’s voice was trembling. “It’s burning.”

They watched the news together in silence for a few minutes, waiting for the worst. Suddenly there was an update: the Pentagon.

“No,” said Casey.

“Fuck!”

“This is—what do we even do?”

“You should call Charlie,” said Danny. “Make sure he’s safe.”

“Yeah. Yeah. I, uh. You stay safe, too, okay?”

“Yeah. Don’t go anywhere.”

“I won’t.”

The phones kept going out, though, and even when he could get through, Charlie wasn’t at home with Lisa. He couldn’t get through to the school at all, either on the landline or his cell. All he could do was pray that the destruction would be limited, and be grateful that Lisa had insisted on anything but downtown.

He called Danny back to tell him about Charlie at school. Danny said, “Okay, yeah, he’s probably fine. They’re a ways out.”

“Yeah.”

“I called Dana and Natalie. They’re okay. They were asleep.”

“Thank God.”

Casey was still staring at his screen, phone at his ear, when the next piece of news came through—the footage of the South Tower crumbling.

Danny’s breath caught. “No.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“They couldn’t have gotten everybody out.”

“They didn’t.”

 

The show didn’t go on that night. CSC went to their news affiliates, and that was the broadcast instead.

 

Casey didn’t leave the apartment all day. The streets in his neighborhood were eerily silent. Danny wasn’t that far away, but no one wanted to be blocking the roads in case emergency vehicles came through, or if something else happened.

So he sat on his couch and watched the news and eventually remembered to eat, a microwave dinner that tasted like ashes in his mouth. The estimates of casualties kept changing.

Lisa got to Charlie’s school and got him home, and Casey talked to him on the phone. He’d turned into a startlingly precocious eleven-year-old, growing up faster and faster.

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” said Casey. “I wanted to hear your voice.”

“I’m glad you’re okay, too, Dad.” Charlie’s voice wavered a little, but he kept it together.

 

Danny called back in the afternoon. Casey didn’t ask how many tries it took. They just—kept calling, calling each other, calling anyone they could think of, trying to make sure everyone was safe. The phone lines were a mess. On TV they were saying that Verizon was out completely, and some of the landlines were damaged in the attack, so who they could reach depended on the neighborhood they were in.

You never kept a spreadsheet of people you needed to worry about. You didn’t have some checklist to go through. The best he had—Casey pulled out his address book, a neat little thing in black leather that normally lived in the junk drawer: Isaac and Esther, in New Canaan, were fine; Jeremy had a busy signal; Kim had her place in Crown Heights and she was all right; Elliot wasn’t picking up. He had Dave’s number, but not Will’s or Chris’s. Some of the numbers were out of service.

When Danny called, he said, “Rebecca’s all right but she can’t reach Stuart.”

“Stuart?” asked Casey, feeling vaguely like a terrible person for not being sure who that was.

“Her friend from the building—worked there when she did. He’s a good guy, he went to the bar with us a couple of times.”

“Oh, right.” Stuart started to come back to him, a hazy memory of a conversation about finance laws that Casey had nodded through.

“He went to work at the World Trade Center after he left CSC. So she’s worried.”

“Yeah.”

 

They went back the next day. Getting in was hell. The streets as he got close were littered with debris—drifting ash, pieces of paper. The building was practically empty, but in their offices, there was a faint hum of their familiar work, and by the time the show rolled around they felt like they had something to say.

The whole world hadn’t come to a crashing halt, after all; just Manhattan. Just New York, staring at the rubble where their landmark had been.

“Good evening, everybody, from New York City, I'm Dan Rydell alongside Casey McCall. You may have noticed that we were off the air yesterday, because our news affiliates were focused on the tragic destruction of the World Trade Center.”

“Our hearts are with all those who lost loved ones in yesterday’s attacks.”

“But you can’t keep New Yorkers down, and today we’re back with you to talk about one of the things that ties all Americans together—our love of sports.”

“You’re watching Sports Night on CSC, so stick around.”

The show managed to feel almost normal, in the end.

 

Stuart turned out to have been on one of the lower floors. He had a broken collarbone but was otherwise fine. When Danny told him, Casey found himself with sudden, stinging tears in his eyes. He sucked in a deep breath.

Danny smiled at him from across the office. “Yeah,” he said, voice thick. “I know.”

“It’s stupid.” Casey shook his head. “I barely know the guy.”

“But it’s one good thing. You know? One good thing.”

“One good thing,” Casey found himself repeating, and he smiled back at Danny.

 

_[December 30 th, 1985: Rydell house]_

_“Daniel!”_

_Dan looked up at the sound of his dad’s bellow. It penetrated from the second floor all the way to the basement, where he was watching television. It seemed to echo and twist, the noise distorting as it moved through the air; he felt like he could watch it._

_He didn’t answer. A few minutes later his dad stomped into the basement._

_“Are you high again? Answer me.”_

_Dan shrugged. “Does it matter? I’m done with my homework.”_

_“You’re making your mother sick.”_

_“That’s dramatic.”_

_“She worries about you.”_

_“Good thing you don’t.”_

_“Why are you like this?” His dad put his hands on his hips and made a sour face, like he’d bitten into a lemon._

_Dan laughed, without any real humor. “Eating any lemons lately?”_

_“At least make sense!”_

_“That’s…” Dan let his eyes wander over the ceiling. “Not looking likely.”_

_“You’re wasting your time. Wasting your life.”_

_The television’s chatter melted into his dad’s voice. It made it hard to untangle, to figure out what his dad was saying. Dan lifted his hands, trying to comb through the strands of sound, and parsed out his dad yelling, “…even listening to me!”_

_“No, but I’m trying,” he said, which was both true and reasonable._

_“You’re determined to go nowhere,” said his dad. “You want to live in a cardboard box?”_

_Dan considered the idea. “Would you live there, too?”_

_“Daniel!”_

_“Because if you did, that would be a very firm no.”_

_He turned to see his dad’s lips purse. Anger, or hurt, who knew. Who cared._

_“There’s no point in trying to talk to you when you’re like this.”_

_On the television, the coyote was getting squashed by an anvil for the five thousandth time. The noise reminded Dan of how it felt every time his dad talked to him. He opened his mouth to say it, but his dad had already slammed back out of the room._

_Dan turned off the television and put on Tom Waits._

_“I danced along the colored wind, dangled from a rope of sand, you must say goodbye to me,” Tom gritted out. Those sounds, at least, were gentle and kind on his ears; the scratch of the voice was honest, and the percussion beat along perfectly in the background. “Every witness turns to steam, they all become Italian dreams.”_

_Dan’s lips shaped the words as they dripped out of the speakers. “Away, boys, away, boys, heave away.”_

 

_[December 3 rd, 2001: Office]_

“I’m going to do something. I think.”

Casey didn’t look up. “What kind of something?”

Dan fiddled with his pencil. _Number two,_ it said, reassuringly familiar. He craned his neck to look back out the window.

“I mean, you have to understand that in the wake of a terrorist attack, things change, right? Big things change.”

“Sure.” Casey did look up, then. Dan caught the motion out of the corner of his eye.

“You have to reassess where you’re at. Who you are.”

“Sensible. You end up confronting the idea of mortality.”

“Considering your legacy in this world.”

“We have a legacy.”

“I know we do.”

“It’s a pretty good legacy.”

“We have reported on sports. We’ve done it well.”

“We’ve made millions of viewers happy. We’ve brought joy to their lives.”

“I know. We have a fine legacy. It’s a legacy of which I am proud.”

“And yet you brought up legacy. As if you’ve been considering your legacy and finding it lacking.”

“I have to say, that is exactly what’s happened.”

“What about my legacy? Since we have virtually identical legacies, does that mean you think there’s something wrong with my legacy?”

“You know what, I have a feeling that this conversation is just going to escalate and go in an unintended direction, and I’m thinking about canceling it.”

“You can’t cancel a conversation.”

“I’m doing it. Conversation canceled. Topic tabled.”

“That’s unfair, Danny, you know how much I love alliteration.”

“ _Everyone_ knows how much you love it. I think people in Mozambique probably know.”

“Does our show air in Mozambique?”

“I have no idea.”

“But look, what’s wrong with my legacy?”

“Nothing! You have a different legacy than I do. You, need I remind you, have a son. A flesh and blood legacy, who’s turning out to be pretty cool, if I do say so myself, in no small part due to my influence.”

“Hey, he could get his coolness from me!”

“In what universe?”

“In what universe what?” asked Natalie, sticking her head in the door.

“In what universe could Charlie get his coolness from Casey?”

“None.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Hey!”

“Casey, it is just a sad fact that you have never been cool. Dan, do you want to talk about ice hockey?”

“For you, Natalie? Anything.”

 

_[November 22 nd, 1996: Minneapolis]_

_“Yeah, thanks. You, too.” Casey hung up the hotel phone. He left his hand on it for a long moment, like he might suddenly pick it up._

_Dan watched him, deliberately quiet._

_Casey heaved a huge sigh and sat back. “She’s mad at me.”_

_“When_ isn’t _she mad at you?”_

_“Not often.”_

_“What is it this time?”_

_“She thought I was going to be back earlier tomorrow.”_

_“The flight isn’t until the afternoon.”_

_“I thought she knew that.”_

_“She didn’t know that?”_

_“Apparently, she did not know that.”_

_“Well.”_

_“I’m not sure it even matters anymore.” Casey scrubbed at his forehead with both hands. “I think she’s working up to asking for a divorce.”_

_“I don’t know, man. That’s a big step.”_

_“From where we’ve been?” Casey laughed, but it was flat. “Not such a big step.”_

_“You’ve got Charlie together. That’s a pretty big deal.”_

_“Plenty of divorced guys have kids. God. I could be his weekend dad. Lisa would say I already am.”_

_“Come on, you always try to be there for him.”_

_“I know.”_

_“He loves you. You’re a great dad.”_

_“I don’t feel like a great dad. He was already asleep when I called.”_

_“Look, maybe what you need is a distraction.”_

_“What kind of distraction did you have in mind?”_

_“Specifically, or generally?”_

_“Let’s be specific.”_

_Danny rooted through his duffle bag and produced the bottle of Jägermeister. “A little of this.”_

_Casey whooped. “Or a lot of that.”_

_“Or a lot.”_

_A couple of hours into the Jager, they decided to go for a walk in the snow. They laughed their asses off in the elevator as Casey tried to pull his glove on but it kept getting stuck, jamming up around his fingers. Dan said, “O that we had—that we now had here—shit—but one of those, those…”_

_“Ten thousand men of England who do no work today!” shouted Casey._

_“Oh, shit. Did I set you off?” said Dan, fatalistically, but still giggling._

_“What’s he that wishes so?” Casey bellowed, as the elevator dinged and the doors slid open. They found themselves facing a nearly empty lobby; there was a clerk behind the desk with a furtive magazine, and a janitor with a mop, and neither of them appeared to care. Casey just kept going—pausing dramatically halfway to the door, for all Dan tried to tug him further. He smelled like licorice from the Jager and he was all fuzzy with warm wool. “THESE WOUNDS I HAD ON CRISPIN’S DAY,” Casey roared, dramatically trying to tug up his coat sleeve, forgetting that it was already a mess. The clerk didn’t even look up. The janitor glanced their way, pained, before returning to his work._

_Finally he let Dan drag him toward the door. He kept reciting the speech. Dan was pretty sure he was getting the occasional word wrong._

_He petered out around “From this day to the ending of the world…” and looked concerned._

_Dan said, “We in it shall be remembered. We few, we happy few.”_

_“We band of brothers,” said Casey, visibly relieved, and finished out the speech._

_Outside the air was so sharp Dan had to seriously question their sanity in going for a walk, however long they’d been cooped up that day. It was burning, it was so cold, and his cheeks were on fire._

_Casey still smelled like licorice. He was mumbling to himself, half-singing; retracing the lines of the speech, here and there._

_“Danny,” he said at one point, when Dan had taken a break from listening to squint up at the blazing moon._

_“Yeah, Case?”_

_“He that today sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.”_

_“I appreciate that.”_

_“We’re not shedding much blood, though.”_

_“Not yet, but at this rate, trying to get your boots off is going to do it.”_

_“Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered…”_

_“I have a feeling you’re not going to be doing a lot of remembering,” said Dan._

_Casey leaned heavily against him. “Danny,” he said, carefully. “Danny.”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“You’re—my best friend.”_

_“Don’t get sappy on me, here. Wouldn’t want you to say anything you’d regret.”_

_Casey thought that was hilarious for some reason, cracking up until he was wheezing, until they had to stop so Casey could hang onto a street lamp while he rode out the laughter._

_“The fuck, dude?” said Dan._

_“Anything I’d regret. Holy shit. How many regrets do you think I have, Danny? Because it’s a lot. They’re a lot. Whatever.”_

_“Come on, now.” Dan gently urged him back in the direction of the hotel. Everything felt short and choppy, like someone was editing them with too-fast cuts. “You need to sleep. Chill a little.”_

_“Not Charlie, though.” Casey’s face went pensive. “Never Charlie. Best decision we ever made.”_

_“Damn right. He’s a good kid.”_

_“He’s a great kid.”_

_“So see. You could have done a lot worse.”_

_“I’ve done some shitty things. But at least I’ve got him.”_

_“You do.”_

_“He’s sleeping.”_

_“Yeah, and I think he’s on to something, Champ.”_

_Back in the hotel room, Casey needed help getting out of his snow boots and parka and those damn gloves again. His hands were freezing cold; Dan held them absently for a minute, rubbing to get some warmth back into them._

_“Thanks,” slurred Casey. He was lying back across the bed, eyes shut._

_“No problem, man.” Dan let go of his hands and went back to the bootlaces. How he ended up on this duty when he was also very drunk, he couldn’t be sure, but whatever. He’d done worse._

_[December 4 th, 2001: Abby’s office]_

“Here’s the thing,” said Dan.

“Yes?”

“It’s about legacy.”

Abby raised her eyebrows and leaned back in her chair, an invitation for him to go on. After a minute, he did.

“I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.”

“Many people have, Danny. I think that’s a pretty natural thing to start thinking about when we witnessed so much death and destruction.”

“Yeah. And you know, uh, you know I’m doing better with the panic attacks.” They’d come back with a vengeance after September 11th.

“How are the nightmares?”

“Honestly a lot better.”

“So what kind of thoughts have you been having about legacy?”

“I think…” Dan stopped and sighed. “You remember that thing last spring?”

There was only one _thing last spring_ that had consumed him and occupied a truly disproportionate amount of his time.

“The tabloid story,” Abby said, almost gently.

“Yeah.”

“So you’re connecting that with your legacy.”

“Yeah. I—you know there aren’t… there _aren’t_ out sports anchors.”

They had talked about it extensively at the time. “I know.”

“I was thinking… it might make sense to come out. Maybe not, you know, right away. But eventually.”

“That’s interesting.” Abby leaned forward, bracing her elbows on the desk; she folded her arms and watched him. “What do you think would be the good from that?”

“Wow, that sounds awfully judgmental.”

“It’s a serious question. Tell me about what that does for your legacy.”

“It—I’m pretty famous. I don’t say that to be a dick, I say it because it’s true. And if a famous sports anchor came out… it would show kids going into the industry that that’s something they can aim for. Hope for.”

“So you’re hoping to improve conditions for gay kids?”

“And, you know, everybody.”

“That’s right.”

“I mean, I’m bisexual, not gay. My relationships with women were all real.”

“I know that, Danny.”

“Because I think sometimes even you forget that _bisexual_ is not _gay._ ”

“That’s a fair point. It’s reasonable to think about when you’re talking about your identity.”

“Yeah. So, anyway. It’s just… in some ways I think it would be easier if I _were_ gay, because people would understand that, they’d believe that. I think if I come out as bisexual they’re going to think I’m just confused. Or lying. Pit stop on the way to gay.”

“I think that’s a valid concern.”

“So that’s why I say maybe not coming out right now. You know? Because, believe it or not, I’m kind of an integral part of the show, and a lot of jobs depend on me being… marketable.”

“I know.”

“But maybe starting to think about it. Look at the conditions. The show can’t go on forever, and if it goes away…”

“Aren’t your ratings better than they were on CSC?”

“Yeah. Quo Vadimus is putting a lot more marketing into us. More money, period.”

“And that’s translating to good ratings.”

“Yeah.”

“So why are you worried about the show ending?”

“I’m not worried about it.”

“You think about it quite a bit. Are you, on some level, hoping for it?”

“What? That’s insane. This show is, literally, the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and I don’t mean that in a metaphorical sense, I mean it absolutely. Why would I want that to be gone?”

“Maybe because you’re still, after five years—”

“Six years—”

“After six years, still worried you’re going to screw something up and lose it all, and you’d rather drop the other shoe yourself than see it dropped for you.”

Dan sat back. “So you don’t think I should come out.”

“I think if you’re going to come out, you should know exactly why you’re doing it, and not keep secrets from yourself.”

“That’s kind of cold, Abby.”

“You don’t see me because I’m so warm and fuzzy.”

“Fair enough.”

“So, if you did want to blow up the show, how would you do it?”

“What?”

“If you were going to _try_ to sabotage yourself, what would you do?”

“I…” Dan searched for a moment. “Pick a fight with Casey, probably. That’s one place to start.”

“Like Draft Day.”

“Yeah.”

“That was a year and a half ago. You still feel guilty for that?”

“What do you think?”

“So that’s a yes.”

“Yeah. I do.”

“But it didn’t tank the show.”

“It didn’t. I was—we were lucky.”

“Do you think that would have been the deciding factor in whether the show got pulled?”

“I mean, no. The networks looking at buying us would have still—they would have had to decide whether they wanted to keep a sports show.”

“But you still would have felt personally responsible for the failure.”

“Well, yeah, but we all would have. Because it’s all of our jobs.”

“Do you think coming out would start a fight with Casey?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I told you, he was okay about it.”

“You also told me you weren’t completely sure he was really okay with it. And ‘it,’ in this case, is your bisexuality.”

“Come on, Abby.” Dan looked away. By now he probably had every seam in the couch, every chip in the paint, memorized. “That’s not fair.”

“To who?”

“To—what do you mean, to who? To Casey.”

“Are you sure you’re not worried about whether it’s fair to you?”

“Why wouldn’t it be fair to me? I honestly don’t know what we’re talking about right now.”

“If I bring up your ongoing uncertainty about your relationship with Casey, you have to address whether you feel like he’s really being supportive, and what that means for you if he isn’t.”

“Of course he is.”

“Danny. I’m not saying this so you’ll entrench further in that position. I know that’s very tempting to do, but keep in mind that I have no skin in the game. Whether you’re friends with Casey or not doesn’t matter to me. What does matter is whether you’re holding your friends accountable for _being_ friends.”

“You’re crazy. He’s always been there for me.”

“Has he?” She raised her eyebrows. “Because it seems to me that you’ve very rarely given him the chance to. I’m not convinced that you know whether he’s supportive, because I’m not convinced you show him the truth often enough for either of you to find out.”

“What—what truth?”

“When you’re sad, and angry, and scared.”

“We’ve talked about this before. A lot.”

“And you’ve been doing better. Opening up more. But have you talked to Casey about this, or are you hanging on to it because you’re afraid of what he’ll say?”

“I know what he’ll say.”

“Danny, are you more afraid that he’ll tell you to do it, or not to do it?”

Dan folded his arms. “What makes you so sure I’m afraid of what he’ll say?’

The corner of her lip quirked. “Are you?”

“…Yes.”

“There you go.” She spread her hands. The gesture reminded him of Casey. “You’re trying to navigate your relationship with Casey in a new way, now that you’re being more honest with him, and you’re scared shitless he’s going to be more honest with you about things you never wanted to talk about, because you’ve been protecting yourself with distance and silence since you met.”

“I feel pretty confused. Just going to say that.”

“About what?”

“I came in wanting to talk about coming out and you turned this into a conversation about Casey.”

She barked out a laugh. “Danny. I don’t know how you’ve managed to avoid noticing this, but _most_ of our conversations end up being about Casey.”

“That’s—” Danny groped for words. “That’s not…”

“Don’t insult my intelligence or yours. He’s clearly the single most important person in your life, he holds a tremendous amount of power over you, and you haven’t been able to work out exactly how you feel about him in ten years. Is he your hero? Your big brother, except, unlike David, one that actually loves you? Your best friend? Can you confide in him? Is he your lover? Is he your captor? Did he carry you to stardom, or trap you in his shadow?”

“Wait, wait. What—”

“The reason you can’t figure out _one_ answer is that no one answer is enough, Danny. He’s a lot of different things to you, and what he is to you has changed over time. Both of you have changed. That’s inevitable. The question is, can you make peace with that now and have a meaningful relationship as the two of you face whether to keep working together or not?”

“Why wouldn’t we—”

“Because you’re getting antsy about it, and that’s because you don’t really know where you stand. Before you go looking for grand gestures to push him off-balance and try to see where he stands, I’d suggest you start small. Ask him.”

“Ask him what?”

“Ask him what kind of relationship he wants. If he wants to be your big brother and you want a best friend, you’ve got a conflict that needs to be addressed.”

“I feel like this got completely away from me.”

“You get that feeling a lot, huh?” Abby asked sympathetically.

“Hey!”

“You’re going to have to figure out who you are to each other if you want this partnership to keep working. It’s been limping along, but you’re both just kicking the pole as hard as you can to see it shake.”

“Why would you—you said lover.”

“Oh, I had a feeling we were going to come back around to that.”

“Yeah! It’s, that’s a weird thing to say!”

“Is it? Really?”

“I—it’s not like that.”

“It’s never been like that between you two. I know.”

“So why did you…”

“Danny, you’re a very smart man. Don’t say something stupid.”

Dan looked away again.

“Do you think Casey would want to do a show without you?”

“I think he’d be able to.”

“Do you think he _wanted_ to, when he told you that you should go to L.A.?”

“I don’t know. I’m not a mind reader.”

“We all make assumptions about what other people are thinking and feeling. It’s an important part of being human. So tell me. What did you assume? That he secretly wanted you to go?”

“Abby.”

“I know it’s a lot. It probably even feels like too much. But you’ve been working for the last year and a half without really knowing whether you can or should feel comfortable with Casey and your partnership. The tabloid deal this spring messed with your mind some more, and now you feel like you have a concrete reason to pin that discomfort on. If you could find out for sure that Casey didn’t want to work with you, you could stop hoping and you could flush all this down the toilet and try to start over. Is that about right?”

Dan covered his eyes with his hands. “Shut up.”

“What would be different in your life if you genuinely believed that you have a right to be happy and to the respect and affection of others?”

“I don’t know.”

“Think it over.”

 

_[May 16 th, 2000: Office]_

_“Danny, you got to go out there yourself.”_

_“Casey—”_

_“You can do it without me, Danny.”_

_“This is it?”_

_“You can do it without me. You should think about it.”_

_Dan had to keep stopping, rewinding the tape, listening to it again in his mind: You can do it without me. You can do it without me._

_Casey kept it together. He kept it together because Lisa had been right, hadn’t she, all along; he was a selfish bastard, he always had been, and he’d kept Danny tied to him, smothered, all this time, tried to keep Danny all to himself. Because of that feeling—that fucking feeling._

_What did it fucking matter whether Danny was the perfect partner if Danny was miserable?_

_Dan had to get up and leave the room._

_Casey watched Danny leave, and then he picked up an eraser off his desk and threw it, and then he picked up a pencil and threw that, listening to them rattle against the plexiglass. He kept going until his desk was mostly bare, and then he made himself get up and scoop the office supplies off the floor and the couch._

_On set, when they found out they were staying, adrenaline arced like lightning down Dan’s spine. He didn’t have to go; not yet. Maybe Casey was fine with the idea of Dan leaving, but Dan fucking wasn’t, and now he didn’t have to be._

_[December 9 th, 2001: Office]_

“Hey, Danny, happy Hanukkah.”

“Thanks.”

“Got any festivities planned?”

“What, with my family? No, they saw me for Purim, they’re good.”

“That seems reasonable.”

Danny lapsed back into silence, complete with staring pensively out the window.

“You okay, man?” asked Casey. Danny had been off ever since his last visit with Abby—still smiling and talking if you talked directly to him, but like a machine coming online when you plugged in quarters. Not like Danny at all.

“Sure.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“I’m fine.”

“Because you’ve been staring at the screen without typing for the last twenty minutes, and normally you do this thing called writing. That’s kind of a thing we do.”

Danny sighed deeply. “Please stop talking.”

“I don’t see that happening, somehow.”

“I think I’m going to go on a date,” Danny said.

“Well, you seem very enthused about it. Exhilarated, dare I say.”

“Abby thinks I’m too hard on the girls I go out with.” Danny paused. “Don’t say it.” Casey shut his mouth resentfully. “So I’m going to, I don’t know, try.”

“You go out a lot.”

“I do.”

“You have a good time.”

“I do, indeed.”

“It’s always been my impression that the girls you go out with also have a good time with you.”

“I would have to say that I share that impression.”

“And yet you’re going to try harder?”

“Abby says there’s a difference between charming someone and having a meaningful connection with them.”

“Yeah, don’t I know it. You haven’t tried to charm me in years.”

Danny got a funny look on his face. “I don’t know how to respond to that.”

“That’s fair.”

“Anyway, her name is Jennifer and I’m seeing her tomorrow night.”

“Jennifer.”

“Don’t start.”

“What a unique name.”

“How long do you think Sports Night is going to last?” said Danny abruptly, fiddling with a pen, staring down at it in his hands.

It caught Casey off guard. “I don’t know. Depends on whether we end up keeping the number two slot.” They’d managed to edge into it more and more consistently over time, and the show was starting to look viable.

“Do you think a lot about what you’d do after it?”

“Not really. I’ve got enough in savings that I could take some time to look for a good offer.”

“Sometimes I wonder if I have any other skills.”

“What other skills do you _need?_ You’re a great writer and a fantastic anchor.”

“I don’t know.” A muscle tensed in Danny’s jaw. “Is this… is that all there is to me?”

“What? No. That’s ridiculous. You’re a great friend, everyone here cares about you. You’re funny and you’re smart and you’re—look, I don’t know what got in your head, but I want you to know beyond any _shadow_ of a doubt that you’re important to us.”

A small smile hovered around Danny’s mouth. “Okay.”

“And not just because you’re the only one who knows which songs are public domain.”

“I still can’t believe Happy Birthday isn’t.”

“It really does seem like some bullshit.”

“Case?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think it’s unfair that I don’t tell the women I date?”

“About Happy Birthday?”

“No. The other thing.”

“Wh—” Casey started to say, before crashing into what Danny must mean. “Oh. I… No. I don’t think it’s unfair.”

“Sometimes I wonder.”

“Look, that’s a really personal thing. If you get to where you want to marry someone, tell her, okay? Otherwise, it’s your right to keep that to yourself.”

“Okay.”

 

_[March 4 th, 1998: The McCall home]_

_“You son of a bitch!” Lisa yelled, clenching and unclenching her fists. “I can’t believe you!”_

_“I don’t even know what you’re talking about!”_

_“I have spent fifteen years of my life with you. Fifteen years. And this is how it ends? You want to walk out with a whimper? I want a motherfucking bang!”_

_“Who says I’m walking out?”_

_“I read your fucking email!”_

_“You’re reading my email? That’s rich, coming from you. What email? Jesus fucking Christ, what are you talking about?”_

_“You got an offer from Cleveland! Were you going to just go again? Move again, without even telling me this time?”_

_“I got an offer! I wasn’t going to take it!”_

_“You weren’t even going to tell me about it?”_

_“Why would I? I wasn’t going to_ take _it!”_

_“Sure. Right. Just like you wouldn’t have told me about Conan’s show, would you?”_

_“If I’d known how you were going to react? No. I wouldn’t have.”_

_“Christ, Casey! You do everything without even asking me and then you wonder why I flip out? You seriously have the nerve to wonder?”_

_“I have to wonder why you do_ anything _you do. You’re a fucking nightmare. You are a disaster. You’re a wreck, and you’ve tried your best to make me a wreck, too.”_

_“I’ve tried—Casey, you don’t even fucking listen to yourself, do you? You’re the most self-absorbed man I’ve ever met and I had to fuck up bad enough to marry you, and I have spent the last ten years regretting it. Waiting for you to call me, and you don’t. Waiting for you to come home, and you don’t. God only knows what you think marriage is, but whatever it’s supposed to be, we don’t have it.”_

_“Oh, what’s that supposed to mean? I stuck to my vows, Lisa. I stuck to them even when there were fans, really hot, young fans, who tried to climb into my lap at bars. Think about that. You think I’m such a jackass, why didn’t I fuck them when I could have?”_

_Lisa’s face had gone sheet white. “You’re such an asshole. You’re going to throw that in my face? That you could have fucked around and didn’t? What do you want, a medal?”_

_“It seems to me I could at least get some recognition for my self-control!”_

_“You made a vow to me. Not screwing other women was kind of central to it! You don’t get bonus points for sticking to that just because you’re famous!”_

_“You have never once been grateful for the things I’ve done for this family.”_

_“What things? Made money? Moved us around the country? I could have made money.”_

_“At what, your fucking arts and crafts? Handmade jewelry?”_

_“That’s a hobby I picked up because you didn’t want me to work, and it’s a shitty move to pretend like it’s my fault!”_

_“No one was stopping you from going back to work. I’m so tired of talking about your career. You fucked it up because you weren’t ambitious enough, you weren’t hungry enough, and that’s supposed to be my fault somehow.”_

_“You know what? You’re right. I fucked up. I fucked up when I married you. I married a man who can’t even see that it’s over.”_

_He froze. “What?”_

_“It’s over. I want a divorce.”_

_“I don’t know if that’s…” He trailed off. Any idiot could have seen it coming. Somehow it was still a sucker-punch._

_The fury had gone out of her; she was leaning against the wall, staring into space. “We could do a trial separation.”_

_“Okay.”_

_“See if that helps. Some distance.”_

_“Yeah.”_

_They stood there in the kitchen, in the ruins of their marriage, both shell-shocked. And a curious, creeping relief was coming over Lisa’s face. Casey wished he could share it, but all he felt was a kind of blind panic about the future._

_He’d been Casey-and-Lisa for fifteen years, married for almost ten. They had a kid. He was a father and a husband._

_Who the hell was he going to be when he wasn’t that man anymore?_

 

_[December 11 th, 2001: Office]_

“Can you believe it’s been three months already?”

“Not really, no.”

Dan tapped the golf ball neatly into the tin can. “The date with Jennifer was good.”

“I’m glad.”

“It got physical.”

“I surmised.”

“But it was kind of weird.”

Casey put down his score sheet and looked up. “Weird how?”

“I don’t know. I felt… you know how I always want to know if people like me?”

“We have talked about it seven or eight million times since you started seeing Abby, yes.”

“I didn’t care if Jennifer liked me.”

“That is definitely new for you.”

“I know. That’s not how I roll at all. And it made the sex weird.”

“At the risk of getting repetitive, weird how?”

“I didn’t feel like I was really there.” Dan lined up his next shot. “It was like I was watching myself from a distance. Abby says that’s dissociation.”

“Huh.”

“It was still good and everything. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sorry we slept together. I just don’t know what to make of how it went.”

“Sounds like a good Abby kind of question.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Are you seeing her tonight?”

“Jennifer? No.”

“No, Abby.”

“Yeah, actually, I am.”

“So there you go. She can help you figure out your shit there.”

“Great, figuring out my shit, exactly what I want and need out of life.”

“You could do worse.”

“I know. I’ve _done_ worse. That is literally the only reason I keep going back to therapy.”

 

“That’s interesting,” said Abby.

“Yeah, see, I don’t want to be interesting. I want to be _fine._ ”

“That’s a big goal and it’s one you may never reach. Most people don’t. They work their way to functional and then work to stay there.”

“I’m pretty functional.”

“Danny, you just finished telling me that you didn’t feel like you were in your own body while you were having sex. How functional does that sound to you?”

“Not very.”

“In the past, you’ve had this feeling before, but it’s only been around your family.”

“Yeah.”

“Specifically your parents.”

“Yeah.”

“So what’s different now?”

Dan sighed, twisting to look at the window. “I don’t know.”

“Not good enough.”

“I was… I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said about Casey last week.”

“About your relationship with Casey?”

“Yeah.”

“And what have you been thinking?”

“I don’t know. I keep going around in circles in my brain like I’m on a hamster wheel. I feel like I should know what’s happening but I don’t.”

“I’m guessing you didn’t talk to Casey about it.”

“A little bit. Not much.”

“Okay.”

“You’re not going to lecture me about that?”

“Do you want me to?”

He shrugged with one shoulder. “Maybe a little.”

“So that you can feel bad and then feel like you’ve done some penance? Danny, we’ve talked about how useless penance is as a concept. It’s bad enough for Catholics, much less the rest of us.”

“I feel like I need a kick in the ass to figure out where I want to go from here. I mean, do I really want to stay at Sports Night?”

“Do you?”

“I think so.”

“But you don’t know so, and that’s driving you up the wall.”

“Yeah.”

“What would make the difference, do you think?”

“All that stuff you were talking about.”

“Feeling certain that Casey respects your contributions?”

“Yeah.”

“And the rest of the team, to a lesser extent.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it may not be an overnight kind of decision.”

“I know.”

 

_[January 11 th, 2000: Casey’s condo]_

_He wasn’t sure why he’d brought Pixley here. It wasn’t that nice a place—well, it was fine. It looked reasonably hip and expensive. He’d tried, anyway, and he’d gotten the cleaning service in recently enough that it didn’t look like a disaster zone._

_Pixley was looking around, interested, eyes lighting on his couch. God, now that he was looking at the living room through somebody else’s eyes, he could see how it looked like a furniture showroom. Like this was all mise en scene for his serial killing spree._

_He was still buzzed. Her hair looked so soft, hanging with the light glowing through it. He reached out and ran his fingers through her hair, and she turned to look back and up at him. She smiled. She laced her fingers together behind his neck to draw him down to her, carefully, for a kiss._

_He could feel the blood pounding in his groin, starting to fill his cock. Her mouth was so wet and soft, and she kissed nothing at all like Lisa, or Sally, and definitely not like passionate hidden-depths Dana. He’d kissed a handful of other girls and women over the years, spin-the-bottle when he was a kid and women who’d gotten handsy at bars before he’d peeled them off. This was different. He was allowed to be here. He still felt obscurely guilty. He kissed her harder, trying to erase it._

_She moaned softly, responsively, sliding her hands up his arms, and he found himself lifting her to set her on the edge of the counter so he wouldn’t have to bend down. She liked that, he thought, giggling deep in her throat before wrapping her legs around his waist._

_They ended up having sex in his bed. He felt a little too old and a little too nervous to get wilder than that. He left the reading light on, so the spotlight on the headboard spilled light out over her gleaming hair. He felt self-conscious about his body in a way that felt new. She seemed happy, though. Playful, even, tugging on his hair and sprinkling kisses over his face as he reached to cup her sex in his hand. She pushed her hips up into him, and he thought that was a cue, so he pulled back enough to watch her face as he slid his index finger into her. She gasped, arching up, and he added his middle finger, keeping the movements long and slow and gentle._

_Sally had been more matter-of-fact about it, liked minimal foreplay. That had disappointed him. Lisa had liked to make a production out of it, and by the time he’d come with her, at least in the early years, he’d always been so ready for it the orgasms had felt like getting hit with a brick in the best way._

_He made sure she came once that way—it was always easier to tell if he had fingers inside someone; Pixley clenched around him, trembling as she came. There was a sheen of sweat over her forehead. It had taken a while, but not much more than it ever had with Lisa. God, he hoped she wasn’t faking it._

_But Pixley gave him a red-cheeked smile that looked genuine, pushed him over on his back, and whispered, “Where are your condoms?”_

_He wordlessly fumbled for the handle on the nightstand. She opened the drawer and he heard the crinkle and tear, and then there was latex—he hadn’t slept with someone using a condom since Sally. Before that, since he and Lisa were practically teenagers, before she’d gone on the pill and they’d gotten engaged. It felt strange._

_But then Pixley slid onto him, her hair hanging around her pretty, heart-shaped face. She looked so earnest and intent, so good, that he couldn’t hang onto the sense of incongruity. He started to let it all go—Lisa, and Dana, and Sally, and all the maybes and could-have-should-haves—as she rode him, sinking down onto him again and again. He tried to figure out what to do with his hands, but she grabbed them and planted his hands on her hips, and after that it was a matter of pulling her down onto him as he thrust up. She rode him, getting shorter and shorter of breath, making little squeaking gasps. He kept his self-control, trying not to think of anything at all, trying to clear his mind. Until she threw her head back and let out a faint shriek, and he felt her squeezing around his cock, and he let go and came with a profound sort of gratitude._

_Afterwards, when he’d pulled out and tossed the condom, she settled on the bed and propped her head up with one hand. She looked up at him mockingly._

_“What?” he asked, feeling defensive._

_“Isn’t this where you tell me that you’ve got an early meeting?”_

_“I don’t. I work later in the day.”_

_“I know that, but you could pretend.”_

_“Why would I?”_

_There was something fond in her eyes. He realized with a jolt that it was uncomfortably close to pity._

_“Because most famous men, when they sleep with a girl on the first date—”_

_“Second.”_

_“—second date, not that tonight was a date, have reasons why she shouldn’t stay the night.”_

_Casey shrugged. “You can stay.”_

_Pixley sat up, reaching for her camisole, flung out across the bed. “I would, but I actually do have an early meeting.”_

_“Oh, how the tables have turned.”_

_“Casey, you’re great.”_

_“But?”_

_“But I don’t know if I get the feeling you’re ready for something right now.” She kissed him on the cheek as she stood. “Call me if you want to have some fun, though.”_

_After she left, he took a shower, thinking the whole time—had he done something wrong? She hadn’t seemed angry. She’d said he could call again._

_Not ready? Not ready for what?_

_God, he just wanted to be married again. Skip all the dating crap and go right to the good parts. Knowing someone down to the bone._

_The thought made him pause. He managed to shake it off without too much effort._

 

_[December 13 th, 2001: Office]_

Danny rolled into the office right on time, hanging up his coat. He’d switched to his new winter weight one, black wool. It looked good on him. “Hey, how was your day off?”

“Good.” Casey shrugged, opening an email that needed a reply. “I caught up on a book I’ve been trying to read. You?”

“Oh, the show was fine. I went out with Jennifer again afterwards.”

“Yeah? How was it?”

“Really good, actually.” Danny looked thoughtful. “I feel like I’m connecting with her on a different level than I usually do with the women I date.”

“Well, that’s good.”

“Yeah.”

Casey typed, _As per my last email._ “You going to see her again?”

“I think so.”

“I’m glad for you, I really am.” He paused. “You deserve a—a good connection.”

“Wow, this is verging on actual emotional communication from you.” Danny, faking concern, reached out to put the back of his hand on Casey’s forehead; Casey swatted it away. “Are you feeling all right?”

“What, you’re the only one allowed to grow? Fuck you, I’m growing. This is personal growth, right here.”

“Okay, okay.” Danny was laughing. “How about you? Any dates on the horizon?”

“No, not since Cheryl.”

“Cheryl the botanist seemed nice.”

“Biologist.”

“There’s a difference?”

“Yeah, apparently biologist is anything living and botanist is just plants. Botanist is a subtype of biologist.”

“Huh.”

“Anyway, Cheryl has one topic of conversation, and frankly, I don’t care how fascinating she finds it, the reproductive cycle of the pygmy shrew does not do it for me.”

Danny settled in at his desk, pulling up his chair. “That’s what you get for dating a scientist.”

“I think she may have found my obvious boredom to be a bit of a turn-off.”

“Fair enough. Were you dazzled by her doctorate?”

Casey waved one hand in the air. “I may have been a little dazzled.”

“Also, she was smokin’ hot.”

“Smokin’.”

“La mujere fumando.”

“I’m not sure that’s right.”

“Bite me.”

“And you’re sure she’s not the flaming woman?”

“File under things you will never stop talking about.”

“There are so many things I will never stop talking about, as long as they irritate you even a little bit.”

Danny grinned as his computer booted up. “Well, Casey, you irritate me significantly on a daily basis, so I think that position is a pretty safe one to take.”

“Whatever keeps me employed.”

“The sex was better.”

“Really?” Casey raised his eyebrows.

“Yeah. I wasn’t sure if it was going to be, because you know. But I talked with her a little bit about how I have some issues and she was… she was pretty cool about it, actually, and that helped a lot. Just knowing that she’s not going to, like, walk out if I’m not a hundred percent on all the time.”

“Most people aren’t a hundred percent on all the time, Danny. You’ve been something of an anomaly in that respect.”

“I know. It’s not really me.”

“So you’re going to try to let her get to know the real you?”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“That’s great.”

Danny cracked his knuckles and pulled his keyboard closer to him. “I think so. I hope so.”

 

_[April 29 th, 1992: L.A. Office]_

_“Holy shit, Casey. It’s turning into riots.”_

_“That’s not going to be a good thing.” Casey had his tongue stuck in the corner of his mouth. He was probably trying to figure out something for the Lakers._

_“It definitely doesn’t sound like a good thing.”_

_“And things that don’t sound good often aren’t good.”_

_“Think we should hunker down here tonight? Make forts under our desks?”_

_“I’ve heard worse ideas.”_

_“That’s not the most encouraging thing you’ve ever said.”_

_Casey sighed, looking up from his word processor. “As long as it stays downtown, we’re okay.”_

_“That’s a little callous, though. Aren’t you worried about all the people downtown?”_

_“I’m worried about them, yes, but my worry isn’t going to do them a whole lot of good, whereas if I apply that worry to myself, I may make better decisions.”_

_“L.A. is a hell of a place.”_

_“Hell is right. Lisa’s never going to let me live down that I moved us out here.”_

_“It’s not like you did it in the dead of night while she was sleeping or anything. She agreed.”_

_“Grudgingly. And only because I begged.”_

_“You begged?”_

_“On bended knee, even. I pleaded with her to see what a great chance this was. She was much less than thrilled. I have a feeling I’m in for a lecture about dangerous urban areas tonight.”_

_“I’m serious about maybe sleeping here tonight. I don’t want to deal with the traffic.”_

_“I wouldn’t stop you.”_

_“Are you going to stay here?”_

_“Depends on what the roads are like. I’ll check the news when it gets closer to time. This could all blow over. You never know.”_

_“They acquitted cops who beat a guy almost to death, Casey, I don’t think it’s going to blow over.”_

_“So cops are rough. It’s their job. They deal with a lot of stuff that makes them that way.”_

_“Oh, you are not seriously defending these guys to me right now.”_

_“I’m not defending them. They fucked up. I’m saying, it’s not a surprise.”_

_“It should be a surprise.” Dan’s lips tightened. “We should live in a world where it’s surprising when cops beat a black guy almost to death and then get off on it.”_

_“You’re making it sound sexual.”_

_“For all we know, it is.”_

_“Danny, I’m trying to work.”_

_“Enjoy your denial.”_

_“Thanks, I will.”_

_The next day, when they came in, it was pretty obvious that nothing had blown over. There were fires in the streets._

_“Did you hear about the curfew?” said Casey._

_“Yeah. That’s fucked up.”_

_“Probably a good idea, though.”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“Think the Lakers are going to play tonight?”_

_“Would you?”_

_“Hell, no.”_

_“Yeah, I don’t think they are either.”_

_Dana stuck her head in their office. Technically it was Casey’s office, but Danny had essentially moved in without asking a few weeks into their tenure. The other staffers working in the overcrowded bullpen hadn’t objected. “Casey, Danny, let’s make sure we have backup in case we can’t talk about the Lakers tonight.”_

_“You don’t think the Blazers are going to want to play in a city in ruins?” asked Casey._

_“I don’t think that’s going to be at the top of their list, no.”_

_“Fair enough.”_

_That night, Dan did announce his intention to sleep at the office. This time he’d brought a duffle bag with all his overnight necessities, including a sleeping bag._

_“There’s a couch in Reception they’ll probably let you crash on.”_

_“I know, but I prefer to sleep with a locking door between me and random passers-by.”_

_“The outside door locks.”_

_“That it does, but this office door is even better. No one will expect me to be in here.”_

_“Because it’s a bad idea. You’re going to wake up so stiff.”_

_“No, my young friend, I am not, because unlike you, I am youthful and limber.”_

_“It’s going to feel like you have a bag full of gravel in your spine and I am going to laugh at you. This is fair warning.”_

_“You don’t want to join me? We could pick up marshmallows and a can of Sterno, reclaim our Boy Scouts youth.”_

_“I was never a Boy Scout.”_

_“You weren’t? Huh.”_

_“Were you?”_

_“God, no. My dad didn’t think I was responsible enough.”_

_“I see.”_

_Dan shrugged off the uncomfortable feeling that always came with mentioning his dad. “The point is, this is going to be an adventure. A fun little urban adventure.”_

_“Set against the backdrop of riots.”_

_“Look, driving back to my place after work tonight is going to be the diametric opposite of a good time. I’d rather not encounter any fires, riots, or other acts of human violence.”_

_“You should have gone with our neighborhood. It’s a lot safer.”_

_“Yeah, and a lot more expensive. My studio may be shitty but it is cheap.”_

_“Hopefully it’s not flammable as well.”_

_Dan stuck out his tongue at Casey._

_They made it all the way to the end of their broadcast with Casey in blissful ignorance, but when he tried to leave the building, his tires were slashed, as were about half a dozen others. It wouldn’t have been a big deal any other time—he would have called Security, he would have had a spare in his trunk—but three out of four were slashed and flat, and Security was on red-alert and generally refusing to leave the main building._

_When he trudged back in to the office, Danny had already unrolled the sleeping bag and was reading a book by the light of the desk lamp. He looked up. “Hey! Case! What’s up?”_

_Casey told him, with an economy of language that yet contained a multitude of profanity, and Danny listened, nodding thoughtfully._

_“You want to borrow my car?”_

_Casey hesitated. “I would, but, uh.”_

_“Oh, no.”_

_“Yeah, you know how you parked next to me?”_

_“Damn it.”_

_“We’ll deal with it in the morning.”  
_

_“You’re going to crash here after all?”_

_“Yeah, I already called Lisa from downstairs.” He did not elaborate on how that call had gone._

_“All right. You want the couch in Reception, or the spare sleeping bag?”_

_“Spare?”_

_“Yeah, I brought two just in case.” Danny scooted to one side to reveal a second bag layered under him. “Thought it might get chilly, but it doesn’t seem like it.”_

_“Fine, give me the spare.”_

_“There’s a shower in the gym two buildings down, I was going to hit that tomorrow.”_

_“Fine.”_

_Danny scooted all the way off the sleeping bag and let Casey tug it out; Casey stripped to his t-shirt and boxers, settling in gradually, until Danny set aside his book and turned the light off._

_They’d shared hotel rooms a couple of times before, and it wasn’t that he didn’t know the whistling pattern of how Danny breathed when he was sleeping. It was that this was different, somehow, in a way he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Maybe it was the danger in the streets outside._

_As his brain, tired but not quite tired enough, started to wind down, he found himself drifting in that space where his thoughts felt like molasses. He’d be asleep soon enough. It was harder in a strange room where there were noises he didn’t know._

_He found his thoughts circling back, over and over, to showering the next day. He’d need to do it, it would be important. He’d have to shave—that he could probably do in the mirror in the men’s room, he could borrow Danny’s razor._

_But he’d have to shower. He didn’t have a membership at the gym. He’d need—would he have to buy a membership? He had his checkbook with him. They probably took checks. It if was really bad he could get up early, get the tires fixed, and try to get home and back as quickly as he could. These fucking L.A. commutes, no one lived anywhere near home. No wonder traffic was a nightmare and his lungs felt like they were permanently coated in grime._

_He’d have to shower. He’d have to—he’d have to strip naked and walk into the shower—probably group? Or maybe individual stalls. And there would be steam. Danny would be there. There would be steam, hot fresh steam, and it would—Danny had brought a travel kit—it would smell like Danny—hot steam that smelled…_

_He drifted off to sleep, and he didn’t remember any of his dreams._

_[December 17 th, 2001: Anthony’s]_

“So, how was Hanukkah this year?” asked Natalie, sitting down next to Danny.

“Fine.” Danny shrugged. “My parents sent me some stuff, I sent them some stuff, Jeremy and I did the menorah thing in the office. I think we’re good. I feel appropriately connected to my culture.”

“What did you send them?”

“I couldn’t sleep a while ago, so…”

“Oh, Daniel. Not the Home Shopping Network.”

“Mom’s getting some tacky jewelry and Dad’s getting a whole set of salad making accessories.”

“Your dad hates salad.”

“That’s honestly kind of a perk for me at this point. I may be thirty-two, but I am still more than capable of being a little snippy. Besides, he should eat more salad. It would be good for his health.”

“Yeah, you’re not wrong. I mean, not factually. Morally is a whole other question.”

Casey, sitting across from Danny, nodded. “She’s right about that.”

“She’s often right, is our Natalie.”

“I’m going to remember you said that,” Natalie told Danny, before leaning across the table to lightly sock Sam Donovan in the arm. He was back on a week’s break that he was still somehow spending hovering over the show. “Why the _hell_ aren’t you at Dana’s table?”

“She’s an independent woman who doesn’t need to be continually by my side in order to feel the strength of our bond.”

“What did you do?”

“Said her joke about Peyton Manning didn’t flow.”

“Didn’t _flow?_ ” asked Natalie incredulously.

“That is what I said.”

“So you were banished.”

“That is one way of looking at it.”

“The strength of your bond,” said Casey, marveling. “You are a purveyor of _exquisite_ bullshit, my friend.”

“I’m still not your friend.”

Danny leaned forward intently, reaching out to rest one hand on Sam’s arm. “Au contraire, Sam. The fact that you are here with us, on this most special of nights—”

“You were _just_ talking about how it wasn’t that big a deal to you—”

“—merely solidifies your position as one of us. One of the group, if you will.”

“I most certainly will not.”

Danny leaned back, evidently satisfied. “Welcome to our tightly-knit group of iconoclasts.”

“I don’t even think iconoclasts can be _in_ a tightly-knit group.”

“And yet we are. Aren’t we, Casey?”

Casey saluted with his beer bottle. “That we are.”

Natalie said, “I’m going to redeem you.”

“What?”

“In Dana’s good graces. I’ll trade them you for Kim. Hang on.” She got up.

“I neither need nor want to be traded,” Sam said to the air.

Danny shrugged. “It’s really better not to try to throw Natalie off track when she makes up her mind about something.”

“You’re all too gentle with her.”

Casey laughed. “Oh, right, _that’s_ our problem, we should be _meaner to Natalie_ to get her in line.”

Kim appeared and gave Sam a kind pat on the head. “Your table’s ready for you.”

“I’m not moving,” said Sam, but as Natalie settled in across from him and delivered a sharp kick with a stiletto heel under the table, he seemed to think better of it.

That left Kim sitting next to Casey, which was always a pleasant experience. She was friendly and smelled good. He told her as much. She patted his knee under the table and grinned at him, but he knew her well enough by now to know that that was mostly reflex; she preferred younger and bulkier men than him.

He let another half-hour or so of conversation flow over and around him. He tried to chip in on occasion, but mostly he let Kim and Natalie talk, with Danny’s interjections providing a low rumbling buzz from time to time.

“I’m going to grab another beer,” said Danny, pushing his chair back. “Anybody want anything?”

“Nah, I’m good,” said Casey. He’d have to head out soon.

“Another margarita for me,” said Natalie.

“Nothing for me.” Kim shook her head.

Danny had been gone for about a minute and a half when Kim turned to him with pleading eyes. Casey blinked. “What?”

“I changed my mind. I actually want a margarita, too.”

“And you want me to go and get it for you?”

“Thank you! I knew you would, you’re the _best._ ” She grinned at him.

He knew he’d been played, but it left him with no choice but to get up and head up to the bar. So he was behind Danny, and Danny hadn’t noticed him, when he heard Danny talking to the bartender.

It wasn’t their usual guy. Must have been Jack’s night off. This guy was… Well, he was young, for one thing; couldn’t have been a day over thirty. And he had long blond hair, like he was trying to do a Kurt Cobain kind of look and failing. He had a nose ring. He was probably an underwear model in his spare time, and you could split a hair on those cheekbones.

Danny had both his elbows propped on the counter and he was _smiling_ at this guy. Casey edged closer.

“…so that was it for soccer,” the guy said.

“That’s a shame. Soccer’s a good sport.”

 _The hell it is,_ thought Casey viciously.

“Yeah, maybe you could show me sometime?”

That was _outrageous,_ that was flirting, right there; Casey might be rusty, but he knew a damn come-on when he heard it. Danny was going to have to—

“Yeah, maybe,” said Danny, laughter in his voice. “It’s been a while since I played.”

Casey elbowed him sharply as he came to stand next to Danny at the bar. “Hi, kiddo,” he said to the bartender, whose face was starting to look less flirtatious and more thunderous. “Got one more margarita order from the lovely ladies over there. I’d better come back with it or Kim might skin me.”

“Yeah, sure.” The bartender turned back to the actual _work_ he’d been neglecting. Danny shot him a funny, sidelong look.

“Casey, this is Brendan. Jack just hired him on while he goes to school during the day.”

“That’s great for you. Nice to meet you,” said Casey, well aware that he was being about two shades too cold to qualify as frosty.

Once they had their drinks in hand, heading back to the table, Danny hissed, “What the fuck? What is _with_ you?”

“ _Brendan?_ You’re going to play _soccer?_ ”

“I do not fucking believe you.”

“That goes for both of us, then.”

They got back to the table about then. Casey dropped off Kim’s margarita and, smiling woodenly, made excuses and then his graceless escape.

 

_December 18 th, 2001: Office_

Casey knew the office was going to be hell the next day. He came in braced for it, ready for Danny to pick up where they’d left off, but it was worse than that. Danny wasn’t harsh. He was chilly, the kind of New England politeness Casey had never particularly enjoyed.

“Danny,” he said.

“I think we could have done better on the bit about the Rams.” Danny tapped his desktop calendar. “I’ve got to record a promo for tomorrow, though. See you in a bit.”

And just like that, Danny vanished. He managed to stay gone for an impressively large portion of the day, and appeared to have found other computers to work at to write his script, which appeared as if by magic shortly before the six o’clock rundown; Casey gave up on making any kind of apology until Danny had cooled down.

The show was fine, if a bit stilted. He didn’t think most people would notice. It wasn’t their A-game, but they kept the jokes rolling, and while Sam Donovan glowered at them from the control booth, he didn’t pull any obnoxious pranks on them.

So it was almost anti-climactic when Danny grabbed his arm after the show ended and said, “Case, can I talk to you in our office for a minute?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, surprised.

Danny let go of him, but followed him with an oppressively heavy silence all the way back.

“I’m sorry,” said Casey as soon as the door closed, the two of them facing each other in the shadowy office.

“What is your _deal?_ That was _nothing._ ”

“Okay, I’m apologizing here, but that wasn’t _nothing!_ That was you flirting with—with some random _bartender_ who’s still in school _,_ do you have any idea the kind of hay tabloids would make out of _that?_ You want to show up in Newsweek with pictures this time?”

“You are sure doing a spectacular job of apologizing. I’m allowed to talk to people who aren’t you, Casey, and I’m even allowed to enjoy it. It’s not like I was going to _sleep_ with him and as long as I don’t, it’s none of your business whether I make new friends.”

“Sure, you just wanted to make a new friend. And the fact that he was, was drop-dead gorgeous had nothing to do with it, or the way he was,” and Casey found himself waving his arms around with some kind of electric rage. “He wasn’t even _making the drinks,_ Danny, he just wanted to talk to you.”

“Maybe I enjoy talking to someone who seems to like me once in a while, instead of my _friend_ who thinks I can’t be trusted not to think with my _dick!_ ”

“Maybe you can’t! Tell me it wasn’t because he was hot. Did he look like that other guy? _Was_ that a one-time deal, or are you a sucker for a pretty face?”

Danny took a step back, like he’d actually thrown a punch. “Oh, holy shit,” he said, and pinched the bridge of his nose. He was still in his makeup. It was going to smear. “Is that what this is about? This is a thing because you think he’s better-looking than you.”

“It’s not like that.”

“You’re jealous that I slept with a guy and it wasn’t about _you,_ is that it? That is a whole new level of narcissism. Wow, you really are _something else._ ”

Danny turned to the door. There was that split-second sense of the pit of Casey’s stomach falling through the floor.

Danny looked down at his arm—Casey’s hand was on it, grasping him just above the wrist. He frowned in confusion, eyes flicking back up to Casey’s face.

Casey took a deep, shaking breath and slid his hand up Danny’s arm, pushing the sleeve of his suit back.

“It’s not like that,” Casey forced out. This time Danny was listening. Or at least frozen, staring at Casey, starting to blink hard over and over again.

 _What the hell,_ thought Casey. The bullpen was deserted, the office was dark. He leaned in to kiss Danny, just a quick thing, fleeting and light and he was too full of adrenaline to even really feel it. He drew back.

“I don’t,” said Danny. “What’s. Uh. I don’t understand what’s—happening here.”

“Danny,” said Casey.

Danny yanked his arm away. “I’m going to—” he said, and left the office, and Casey sat down on the couch in his suit and makeup and tipped his head back and wondered if he could maybe just have a spontaneous heart attack, if he thought about it hard enough.

                                                                                                                                                

Casey wasn’t sure how long he sat there, hoping Danny would come back, but it felt like probably fifteen or twenty minutes before he figured he should get his ass off the couch and go home to at least pretend like he was going to sleep. He would need to get some sleep. He wouldn’t call in sick, no matter how much he might want to. He’d slogged through the divorce with Lisa; this couldn’t be _that_ much worse. At least Danny wasn’t going to be waiting at his condo to scream at him.

He made it all the way into his condo, dropping his keys in the bowl on the console table, before registering that the light next to the couch was on and that Danny was sitting there.

“Jesus Christ!” he yelled, arms windmilling as his back thumped against the door.

“Spare key!” Danny said, alarmed, and stared at him, and he stared back. They both started laughing; it spiraled out of control into huge guffaws, full-blown hysteria. Casey slid slowly down the door until he was sitting, and gradually they subsided, hiccuping occasionally.

Casey dragged himself back to his feet, pulled off his coat, and hung it on the rack. Danny was still wearing a windbreaker that Casey knew Danny kept in his car, and still in his show clothes.

“Uh,” said Casey, sitting gingerly on the armchair at right angles to the couch.

“Casey,” said Danny at the same time, so they both stopped and stared at each other and tried to convey via gestures that the other should talk first.

Finally Casey took a fast breath and said, in a rush, “I apologize. It was none of my business, I’ll just—I’ll back off and you can do your thing, whatever that is, okay?”

Danny stared at him. “Have you been practicing that the whole way home?”

“And for a while before I left.”

“It’s not bad.”

“That’s what I was aiming for.”

“As apologies go.”

“Yeah.”

“Not particularly eloquent, but it gets the point across.”

“Danny…”

“I… were you serious?”

Casey tried to say something flippant, about how of course he was serious about being sorry, but he couldn’t. He coughed, wincing.

“You never…” Danny trailed off. “I thought you would have said. About, uh, men.”

“When you told me…” Casey stopped again. “It wasn’t… it wasn’t a good time.”

“Was there, and pardon me for asking this, but I really am more than a little curious, was there a _better_ time you were waiting for? Because it’s been like a year.”

“Eight months.”

“It’s been a _while._ ”

“Yeah. Uh, yeah.” Casey shut his eyes. It was easier like that. “I’ve just… It was like you said, you know? I wasn’t going to _date_ anybody so it wouldn’t have mattered. I just wasn’t going to… talk about it.”

“Not even with me,” said Danny, quietly, like he was disappointed.

Casey laughed, but it came out rusty and awful. “Of _course_ not with you, Danny. Do you—you honestly don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

“It’s you,” said Casey. “Everybody else, I could have, could have ignored, but not you. I can’t… I would do _anything_ for you. Anything.”

Danny blinked at him, looking lost. Confused.

“I’m, Jesus _Christ,_ Danny, how dense can you possibly be!” Casey yelled. “I’m _stupid_ in love with you and I’ve _been_ in love with you, and now you, it turns out you _like_ men and you don’t like _me,_ of course I’m losing my shit! Of fucking course I’m losing my shit. You want to come out, you want to fuck that blond asshole, go for it, but don’t ask me to be _cool_ about it!”

“I’m… what?” said Danny faintly.

Casey stood abruptly, slapping his thighs as he pushed himself up. “Good talk. Let’s never do it again.”

“You’re in love with me? You’ve _been_ …” Danny trailed off.

“See yourself out!” Casey shouted over his shoulder. “Lock up!”

He locked himself in the bathroom and grabbed the sink, gritting his teeth. He rested his forehead against the cool glass of the mirror. The smudgy print was going to drive him nuts later, but for the moment, there was a certain degree of comfort in it that he wasn’t willing to forego.

He brushed his teeth and tried not to listen for the sound of the front door closing. It was hard to tell, over how his heart was pounding, whether Danny had left or not. So he angrily stripped out of his clothes and took a very long shower, and by the time he emerged, wrapping a towel around his waist, he thought he’d probably cooled down enough that he at least wouldn’t cause any property damage on his way to bed.

So it took him a second to figure out what was happening when he opened the bathroom door and Danny fell forward into him, evidently having been leaning on the damn thing.

“What the fuck!” he yelped, grabbing Danny, towel coming dangerously askew, as Danny flailed and he flailed. The two of them ended up falling over into the hallway, the back of Casey’s head clipping the door frame with a sharp sting of pain.

“You Midwestern passive-aggressive dairy-farming WASP weirdo! You thought I was going to _leave?_ ” asked Danny, staring at Casey from a couple of inches away.

“I told you to!” Casey said, or tried to say, because Danny was kissing him.

Casey had _heard_ about Danny, around the office. He’d heard gossip, which he generally had chosen not to share, that had been complimentary. The gossip had not done him justice. Danny kissed soft but hungry, turning his head to chase Casey’s lips as Casey gasped for air. Danny worked his hands free of the tangle of their bodies, sliding one around the back of Casey’s neck, resting the other over his lower back. Casey couldn’t breathe, couldn’t catch his breath.

And Danny wasn’t stopping. Just kept kissing him, light sometimes and then firmer, deeper, until Casey shuddered and opened his mouth and let Danny in, and then it got confusing, scrambling and hungry, clawing at Danny’s shirt—he was still wearing his dress shirt from the studio, so many _buttons_ —and the towel was falling off. Danny was cupping Casey’s ass in both hands and whispering, _let me, do you want, can I do it,_ and Casey heard himself saying, “yeah, whatever, anything,” words he’d never said before in his _life_ and wouldn’t have imagined he was capable of saying.

It turned out what Danny wanted was to _go down on him,_ dress shirt hanging off one arm, undershirt pushed up around his collarbones, slacks unzipped, and Casey naked on the carpet in the narrow hallway. Casey leaned up to watch Danny for a minute before he had to drop back onto the floor, chest heaving. Danny was sucking him with the kind of enthusiasm he dimly remembered from the early days of dating, back before he and Lisa were having sex, when they were both on fire for it; no one had been that excited about blowing him since then. But Danny kept inching to take more, nose brushing Casey’s hair, before backing off and breathing again, and it was going to kill him. This was going to kill him, this was going to drive him insane, he couldn’t stand it, he wanted to make it last forever, he _couldn’t_ last—and he threaded a hand into Danny’s hair and tugged, to signal, but Danny made a desperate, needy noise and sucked instead, and Casey gave it up, coming so hard his head thumped back against the floor and he heard himself make an inhuman, guttural noise.

Danny lifted his head, and Casey made the effort to lift his, and their eyes locked. In that moment there were so many things passing across Danny’s face, it was like trying to read a teleprompter at triple speed—

Casey reached down and cupped Danny’s cheek in his hand. _In for a penny, in for a pound._

Danny closed his eyes and let out a deep, shuddering sigh.

“I—” they both froze; Casey’s voice was so loud in the hallway. “I meant it,” said Casey, finally. “I’m, I’m stupid crazy in love with you, I want to, uh, I want to be with you, whatever you need to hear, I’ll say it, just tell me what it takes—tell me what it takes to be the one who gets you.”

Danny started laughing soundlessly, breathing in little wheezes. “I need a fucking inhaler,” he said, wonderingly, and Casey sat halfway up in alarm before Danny put a hand on his chest. “Not—really. Just, this is a _lot,_ this is a lot for one day, right?”

“Right,” said Casey, squinting at Danny in concern.

“You—I can’t fucking _believe_ you! You—all the time you—” Danny shook his head. “When—”

“I was in _gymnastics,_ Danny, I knew pretty early on.”

“What the fuck!”

“I ended up quitting because I was too afraid somebody else would know.”

“Big shock there,” Danny muttered under his breath. Danny was tracing feather-light patterns on Casey’s thigh with his fingers, using the other arm to prop himself up.

“But, about you…” Casey leaned back slowly and folded his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. “I don’t even know. I think maybe when you came back for the second year.”

“Of internship?”

“Yeah. You were so young.”

“I’m four years younger than you, you tool.”

“You seemed a _lot_ younger then.”

“Yeah, well, you were younger, too.” Danny’s lips quirked in a smile.

“Shut up.”

“Make me.”

Casey looked up sharply; Danny’s voice had gone low and gravelly, and when he met Danny’s eyes Danny gripped his thigh, fingers digging in.

“Huh.” Casey felt a wild swelling delight. He had a few pounds on Danny, had always been built more solidly. He took advantage of the element of surprise: he grabbed Danny under the arms and used muscles he hadn’t needed in _years_ to flip Danny onto his back. The _thud_ of Danny landing echoed in the apartment, and Danny was laughing, and Casey kissed him as he laughed.

Danny cut off with a gasp as Casey reached into his pants, kneeling up.

“Casey,” said Danny. “You—”

“I said shut up.” Casey took a deep breath and ducked his head. He’d never—the closest he’d ever come to this was kissing a boy in a game of truth or dare at summer camp, and he’d broken away after a fraction of a second, overwhelmed with the fear that someone would _know_ he liked it, he wanted it, and tell everyone, even though it had been a dare. And now here was Danny’s cock, inches away from his _mouth,_ rock-hard and throbbing, and he didn’t let himself pause as he opened his mouth and took it in.

“Ah!” Danny’s whole body shook, and his hands landed in Casey’s hair. He didn’t yank too hard, which was good, because figuring out where to _put_ everything was a challenge; Casey had to figure out how to get himself braced up so he could keep one hand wrapped around the base of Danny’s cock and try not to drool _everywhere_ while he took as much as he could. Women always made it look so easy.

He gave up on the drooling and focused on trying to keep his teeth out of the way. Whatever he was doing, it didn’t sound like Danny was objecting. Distantly, almost muffled, he could hear Danny starting to moan, long, throaty noises, and Danny’s legs were quivering. He tried speeding up a little, moving his head faster, swirling his tongue around Danny’s cock like he thought he’d liked when women did for him. Danny tensed, his cock throbbed again, and then he was coming into Casey’s mouth—coming and coming, and Casey couldn’t figure out what to do at first but then started swallowing, and Danny actually yelled out loud at that.

Casey wasn’t quite hard again when he grabbed the towel and scrubbed at his face, but he thought it if had been ten years earlier, he would have been. “Jesus,” he said, thickly.

“I love you,” said Danny.

Casey stilled. “What?”

“You kept—you kept saying it and I wasn’t saying it _back_ but I do. I, uh, I’m in love with you.” Danny ran his hand across his face. “I—I don’t know how long. A long time. I just, I figured you were straight.”

“Yeah.”

“You were…” Danny sighed. “You kept saying you weren’t _gay._ ”

“I’m not.”

“I know.”

“I’m—like you.”

“Yeah.”

“It was a loophole,” Casey mumbled, wrong-footed and tired of feeling ashamed. “I know. But whatever.”

Danny hummed noncommittally.

Casey had rested his head on Danny’s thigh, and Danny tentatively stroked his hair.

“Casey?”

“Yeah?”

“What do we _do?_ ”

“I’ve been thinking about calling in sick tomorrow.”

“We can’t both do it.”

“Flip you for it.”

“We have to work together.”

“I know.”

“That was always the best part.”

“I know.”

“I would rather die than see Dana.”

“I could not agree more.”

Danny yawned hugely. “Oh, man. I am so tired.”

“Stay tonight,” said Casey.

Danny hesitated. “Are you… your neighbors…”

“I don’t know who my neighbors are and they probably don’t know me. It’s fine. Just stay.”

There was a pause. “Okay,” said Danny. “But as things stand I’m sticky and I destroyed these clothes, which are in fact not even mine.”

“Tell Wardrobe you’ll pay them back.”

“These are like five hundred _bucks_ worth of clothes.”

“Worth it.”

Danny sighed. “Totally worth it.”

“Or get them dry-cleaned and then take them back if that’s cheaper.”

“It would definitely be cheaper. I’m still sticky, though.”

“Take a shower. You can borrow some of my clothes.”

“You’re going to smell like cock,” said Danny apologetically. “I figured I should tell you now, in case you wanted to shower with me.”

“Oh, did you learn that the hard way?”

“Yeah.”

“What makes you so sure I’m not planning to smell like cock again by the time I go in tomorrow?” Casey felt his cheeks go hot with embarrassment, but he stuck to his guns.

Danny inhaled sharply. “You’re going to kill me,” he said after a minute. “How are we going to get anything done?”

“When we know that blowjobs are an option?”

“Yeah, exactly. We were bad enough when we just had _golf._ ”

“Compartmentalize like champs.”

“Ugh.”

“I know,” said Casey, and slowly he got to his feet, offering Danny a hand to haul him up.

“Whoa.” Danny reached for the wall to steady himself. “I’m all rubbery.”

“Welcome to the McCall Fitness Routine.”

“You are such an unbelievable dork, you know that?” Danny called over his shoulder on his way into the bathroom.

Casey grabbed a clean pair of boxers out of his dresser, and then he sat on the edge of the bed, trying to figure out whether he was going to hyperventilate or not. It took him until Danny got out of the shower, ten minutes or ten years later, to decide that he wasn’t.

There were footsteps in the hall. He could feel Danny hesitating at the door.

“Get in here,” he said. He swung his legs up, lying down on his side, and lifted up the blankets.

The bed creaked as Danny climbed on. Casey rolled to face away, and after another fraught moment, he could feel Danny’s hand on his side. He reached up and took it, yanking Danny in closer.

“I’m not fucking around this time.” Casey’s voice was just above a whisper. “I’m not dicking around on the sidelines.”

“I have to admit, I did not see this coming,” Danny whispered back.

Casey lifted Danny’s hand and kissed his palm. Danny caught his breath.

“I wanted—” Casey struggled to get the words out. “I wanted to touch you so bad. For so long.”

“I had no idea,” Danny murmured.

“Remember that heat wave in Houston?”

“With the shitty motel?”

“Yeah. I, uh. You kept—taking your shirt off and wandering around.”

“It was hot!”

“I had to go jerk off in the bathroom.”

“Damn,” muttered Danny, kissing the back of his neck.

“You’re so—I could look at you forever.”

“You look at me all day.”

“Yeah, but I don’t get to just look.”

“You keep telling me how good-looking I am, I might start to get used to it. I like this special treatment.”

Casey wrapped his hand around Danny’s and kissed his knuckles. “If a good ego-stroking gets me—”

“I have a feeling this joke is going somewhere with the word stroking—”

“You’re absolutely right.” Casey didn’t realize he was smiling until he heard it in his own voice.

“I’d hate to let you get too predictable.” Danny yawned. “Oh, man. What a night.”

“It was a big night.”

“It was a big—”

“Now who’s sweet-talking whom?”

“Do you realize that saying ‘whom’ in bed is going to be an instant turn-off for the vast majority of human beings who have ever lived?”

“Luckily I don’t give a damn about them.”

Danny yawned again; his breath tickled Casey’s ear. God, he’d missed falling asleep with someone. “I’m going to think of questions by the time I wake up.”

“Are we going to have to talk about feelings? Because I’m pretty sure I have broken some kind of personal best here, and I’m really not eager to repeat the experience.”

Danny went tense beside him. In the darkness, touching, it was incredible how easy it was to read Danny. They could have skipped years of bullshit if they’d started spooning sooner. Casey tried to ignore the voice in his head that suggested that being the little spoon was beneath his dignity. Technically, if you looked at size alone, he was still the bigger spoon.

Casey sighed. “Fine. We’ll talk about whatever feelings we need to talk about.”

“When do you start with the shitty jokes about me being a woman?”

“Never. Jesus Christ. I’m… look, you were right. I was an asshole. I was being an asshole.”

“Wonders never cease.”

“I said a lot of shit—I was afraid somebody was going to figure it out.”

“Nobody ever did.”

“No.”

“You had to _tell_ me. I should have guessed. You were always a really tight hugger. Like, bear-hugger.”

They were quiet for a long time. Casey started to think that Danny must have fallen asleep, but he didn’t sound asleep.

It startled him when Danny said, “We’re going to have to keep this quiet.”

“I know.”

“Really quiet.”

“I know, Danny. I like my job.”

“It would have been one thing if it was just me, but—”

“It can’t get out that it’s both of us.”

“It’s going to suck,” said Danny quietly.

“And not even in the fun way.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s going to be okay.”

“When do you start freaking out?”

“Everyone always thinks I’m going to freak out.”

“Because you do. With clockwork precision.”

“For your information, I had like ninety percent of this freakout already. I’m just working my way through the residual ten percent.”

“Wait, back up.”

“Most of it was before you… before I said anything.”

“Huh,” said Danny.

“I can’t… I know I’m selfish, okay? I know. I was going to… I tried to let you go, but then I didn’t have to.”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t want to.”

“Me neither.”

“We should get some sleep.”

“I’m going to feel like shit in the morning either way, so.”

“Fair.”

Casey had relaxed his grip on Danny’s hand, and Danny took it back. He felt Danny almost absent-mindedly stroking his stomach; there was something calming about it, the slow, repetitive sweeps.

Somehow, without meaning to, Casey fell asleep.

 

Dan had never been good at waking up. He woke up slowly, and he woke up in stages, and he always woke up feeling groggy and annoyed.

The first thing he noticed, coming to, was that the pillowcase was wrong. The next thing that permeated was a profound sense of panic, but not quite enough to wake him up all the way. He couldn’t remember what he was supposed to panic about, but his stomach was in knots, and it seemed liked whatever it was wasn’t fading as he woke up, like nightmares did.

He worked up enough consciousness to blink. And then his eyes flew open.

Casey was staring at him, from about six inches away, wide awake, looking deeply concerned.

“What the _fuck,_ ” Dan tried to say. It came out “whadafck,” but he figured that wasn’t bad for a first attempt.

“Are you awake?”

“No.”

“I was going to make breakfast.”

“Ugh.”

“It’s earlier than I usually get up.”

“No _shit,_ ” Dan grimly mumbled into the pillow.

“Danny…” Casey said, and it sounded like a plea.

Dan shut his eyes briefly and then opened them again as he scrambled to sit up, heart suddenly racing. “Dude. _Dude_.”

Casey was wearing boxers; Dan was naked; he grabbed the sheet and wrapped it around himself, clenching his fist in it where Casey couldn’t see. Casey had gotten up to sit back on his heels.

“We—” Dan waved at them both with his other hand. Casey was looking more miserable by the second, though he was keeping his chin up and shoulders squared.

“Yeah,” said Casey, voice getting all scratchy and wrong.

“You—”

“I—”

“Okay. Okay.” Dan shook his head vigorously. “I’m awake. I am now officially awake.”

Casey watched him.

Dan sucked in a breath, rubbing his face. “Shit. Okay. We’re doing this? We’re doing this.”

“What?”

“Right? I didn’t miss a memo or something. We’re on.”

Casey stared at him. After a minor eternity, Casey started laughing in disbelief. “Hell, yeah.”

“Why am I freaking out? You’re supposed to be the one who freaks out.”

“You _always_ freak out. I don’t know why more people don’t understand that about you.”

“It’s my veneer of cool sophistication.”

“Does your sophisticated, cool bare ass want scrambled eggs?”

“Ugh, no. Are you making coffee? I want coffee. God, what time is it? It is way too early for this. You’re going to give me a heart attack.”

“I’m going to make coffee. Settle down.” Casey started to get up off the bed.

“Casey,” said Dan.

Casey turned back to him, raising his eyebrows—it was so familiar it felt bizarre—and Dan hooked an arm around his waist and kissed him. There was some squawking and thrashing while Casey tried not to fall off the edge of the bed, but that wasn’t Dan’s problem, and when Dan let go Casey followed him, chasing his mouth for another kiss.

Out of breath after a few more reps, Dan managed to say, “I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Last of the great romantics,” muttered Casey, letting go and flopping back onto the bed, sporting some impressive morning wood.

“That’s what I hear!” Dan yelled over his shoulder as he went into the bathroom.

Casey was a total neat freak, and he always kept an extra toothbrush handy, still sealed in its tidy package in a vanity drawer. Dan used it, squinted into the uncannily tidy depths of the medicine cabinet, and selected a corner to in which wedge it. “Mine now, sucker,” he whispered to it, with a rising elation in his chest.

From the kitchen, he could hear Casey banging around with pans, and the smell of coffee was starting to seep in.

He took a deep breath, and he opened the door.

 

_[November 4 th, 2008: Studio]_

The hubbub of the set was louder than usual, and Natalie’s voice cut through it. “Dan, Casey, we’re on in two.”

“Do we _know_ yet?” Casey asked, trying not to whine.

“We don’t know,” Natalie replied tersely over the earpieces.

“This is going to drive me insane,” Casey said to Danny. “I mean it. Genuinely insane. This will be the last coherent or cogent thing I’ll ever say.”

“I thought that happened a while ago, to be honest.”

“Very funny.”

“I thought so.”

Somewhere during that first segment, there was some uproar in the booth, and Casey thought he probably deserved a medal for keeping his shit together, smiling through it and continuing to deliver his lines with aplomb.

“We’ll be right back, so stick around,” said Danny with his on-air smile.

Natalie’s voice came over their earpieces: “It’s been called for Obama.”

“Yes!” Danny pumped his fist. Casey spun his chair around, at least three or four complete revolutions, and then high-fived Danny.

“And that’s exactly the kind of partisan display we aren’t going to have on air, right, boys?” said Dana dryly, but they could hear the smile in her voice, too.

“I have to call Charlie, do I have time to call Charlie?”

“You have a minute and a half.”

“Danny, you got this?”

“I got this. Go.”

Charlie, nineteen and learning to play the guitar (badly) at Oberlin, was shouting from the second he picked up: “Dad! Dad! Did you hear? Did you _see_ this?”

“Yeah, bud,” said Casey, laughing with delight. “I know!”

“This is so fucking cool!”

“It sure is!”

“America’s first black President, Dad, and we got to see it! We got to vote for him!”

“I know.”

“You have to go back on air soon?”

“Yeah, I just wanted to say—I don’t even know. Congratulations? To us? To the entire fucking country?”

“Hell yeah!” yelled Charlie. Somewhere in the background something glass broke, and Charlie said, “I gotta go. I love you!”

“I love you too.”

He was blinking hard when he made it back. Danny had thrown it to a remote correspondent without him just fine, and gave him a low fist-bump under the anchor desk as he slid back in to his chair. He cleared his throat, jamming his earpiece back in, and was ready by the time he had to say, “Thank you, Jessica.”

 

After the show, everyone went out for drinks. Casey saw Dana on her cellphone on the sidewalk as they started to shuffle in. He heard her say, “Isaac! Can you believe it?”, and there were tears in her eyes. He looked away, quickly, but he’d been smiling ever since that c-break and he didn’t feel like he was going to stop any time soon.

“A historic moment, my friend,” said Danny. He clapped his hand on Casey’s shoulder and left it there for a few seconds. “A very historic moment.”

“Indeed.” Casey bit his lip on the deep, heartfelt urge to say _an_ historic moment.

“One that should be celebrated at great length and with gusto.”

“Hell, yeah.”

Danny leaned in and whispered, under his breath, “ _maybe back at your place_.”

“I don’t know how long I can stay,” he said to Natalie, who shrugged.

“If you’re too lame for a Hello-Kitty-tini, I don’t know what to tell you.”

“That doesn’t even sound like a real thing.”

“It is.”

“Also, _why_ would I drink one in honor of Obama’s election? Is he an enthusiast for anthropomorphic cats, and I didn’t know?”

“Ah, go Tweet yourself,” said Natalie, and joined a passing Conga line.

“That doesn’t even make sense!” he yelled after her.

Danny, on his other side, was laughing; Tyler, the guy they’d hired when Jeremy left in 2004, was apparently yelling in his ear about some kind of bet he’d made with Kim that meant now Tyler was going to have go streaking.

“That’s on you, man!” Danny yelled. The bar was _amazingly_ loud. “Never bet against Kim when it means taking a shirt off! She always wins.”

“I know that _now,_ ” said Tyler in dismay. He and Danny peeled off to go sit with some of the crew, but Casey was trying to fight his way to the bar.

“Is that Anderson Cooper?” Dana poked Casey in the arm. “Casey. Is that _Anderson Cooper?”_

“Probably? I don’t know.”

“Are you going to be a fuddy-duddy, tonight of all nights?”

“Actually, yeah.” He couldn’t help grinning at her, though. She looked so happy, and Sam was back in town, which was always good. Apparently being married to Dana made New York look a lot more appealing. (Privately, Casey suspected that Sam didn’t mind one bit that Dana made more than enough to support them both, even if he had curtailed his tropical vacations sharply.) “I’m bushed. I might head home early, get some sleep.”

“All right,” she said. “Don’t let Danny stay up too late.”

He hesitated, turning to look at her.

“Please.” She rolled her eyes expressively.

“How long—?”

“Since the NHL lockout.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

“You are _terrible_ about leaving your phone in public places, and I don’t mind invading your privacy every now and then.”

“You don’t seem… mad.”

“Why would I be?” She flung both arms up in the air as the Wave passed through them, the bar patrons and the people on the sidewalk cheering.

“We were kind of a thing?” He gestured back and forth between them. “You and me?”

“Oh, please.” She laughed and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Never lose your phone. I don’t want an actual scandal.”

“I always loved you, you know,” he said into her hair.

“I know.” She patted his cheek gently. “Now get on home so you can have crazy election night victory sex.”

“I’m not comfortable with that kind of language!” he yelled after her. “I think that’s harassment!”

The Managing Editor of Sports Night flipped him off casually over her shoulder.

He ordered a Hello-Kitty-tini, for the hell of it. It was appalling, and after he drank it he said goodbye to a couple of people and left, fighting his way back to his condo.

Danny texted him about an hour later. _Taking off._

He sent back a smiley face. Danny gave him shit about that sometimes, but whatever, the buttons were tiny and typing a whole message was a pain in the ass.

It wasn’t much later that the front door opened, and there was the sound of Danny tossing his coat over the couch. “Case?” he called.

“Yeah,” Casey yelled back from the kitchen, pulling a can of beer out of the fridge.

Danny came in, clearly with a buzz on, humming to himself; he was wearing his favorite sweater, ratty and worn all to hell, with a hole under the collar that had been driving Casey nuts for years. His cheeks were pink from the cold, and a lock of hair with a persistent streak of gray that he kept talking about dyeing was hanging over one eye. He was smiling right at Casey. It hit Casey like it always did, a punch to the chest.

Casey dropped his beer and kissed Danny as it rolled away, under the cabinets.

 

_[June 26 th, 2015: Casey and Danny’s condo]_

_“Obergefell is an unprecedented victory for gay rights in the United States,”_ said the news anchor.

“Hey, here’s a thought. Marry me,” said Casey.

“Yeah.” There were tears streaming down Danny’s face; he didn’t even seem to notice them, staring at the television screen. “Yeah.”

**Author's Note:**

> My [Hello-Kitty-tini](http://www.foodspotting.com/places/14032-shabu-zen-brighton/items/327312-hello-kitty-tini) had sprinkles.


End file.
